On the night of November 8th 1861, five Union men, along with others who mostly remain unknown, carried out orders from President Abraham Lincoln that were transmitted to General George H. Thomas and given to their leader Capt. David Fry to burn the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad Bridge over nearby Lick Creek. Confederate authorities summarily executed all five men. The executions left nearly twenty children fatherless. The five were Jacob Harmon, Henry Harmon, Christopher A. Haun, Henry Fry, and Jacob M. Hinshaw.