On May 19, 1862, Confederate soldiers crossed the North River at Bridgewater on a makeshift footbridge formed by pushing large cargo wagons into the water after the existing span had been burned and spring rains made the river too deep to ford. They were part of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's army, which had defeated Federal forces at McDowell on May 8 and was hurrying north to strike a Union detachment at Front Royal; among them were the hometown Bridgewater Grays, then Company D of the 10th Virginia Infantry Regiment. Located on the Warm Springs Turnpike, Bridgewater was a hub of Civil War activity, with mills along the river, a Confederate remount center where cavalrymen obtained fresh horses, and a two-story log cabin used as a government storehouse for tax-in-kind meats, produce, and grain taken from citizens to support the Confederate war effort. When Federal forces approached in September 1864, the commissary officer urged townspeople to take whatever they wanted from the storehouse and then burned what remained to keep it from Union hands. On October 2, 1864, Confederate cavalry crossed the river here and attacked Union cavalry under Gen. George A. Custer, routing U.S. pickets before Federal forces counterattacked and drove them back.