Cedar Creek

At Cedar Creek, beside the Daniel Stickley Farm and the Stickley Mills, the wartime Valley Turnpike passed the brick Stickley house and crossed the creek on a covered bridge whose original abutments still survive. In early March 1862, as the Federal army advanced south up the Shenandoah Valley in pursuit of Stonewall Jackson’s Confederates, Jackson assigned Col. Turner Ashby’s cavalry as his army’s rear guard, and Ashby made a stand here. Private George Neese of Chew’s horse battery recalled that on March 18, 1862, Confederate guns were placed about a half mile from the creek on the west side of the pike on a hill commanding the bridge and its approaches, where they opened fire as the enemy advanced and exchanged artillery fire for about twenty-five minutes before Confederates burned the Cedar Creek bridge and yielded the crossing. On March 24, Chew and Neese occupied the same position during the retreat from Kernstown. A few months later, on May 24, as Federals retreated to Winchester, Collis’ Zouaves were cut off and nearly captured by Jackson after being left at the bridge as a rear guard. Ashby’s cavalry again burned the bridge behind Jackson’s retreating army on June 1. The bridge was burned and rebuilt at least four times during the war and was finally carried away by spring floods in 1865.

Virginia · United States