When the war began, most residents of this part of present-day West Virginia sympathized with the Confederacy, and both Confederate and Union forces considered the wooden covered bridge here strategically important because the James River and Kanawha Turnpike linked the Ohio River with the James River. In the summer of 1861, Confederate Gen. Henry A. Wise, the former governor of Virginia, controlled the Kanawha River valley until Union Gen. Jacob D. Cox entered the valley in July, prompting Wise to retreat; after passing through Gauley Bridge on July 26, Wise ordered the bridge burned to impede Cox. Federal forces then established a position near the village and remained until mid-August, when Cox temporarily left, and after his return Confederate Gen. John B. Floyd placed guns on a nearby mountain and shelled the Federals for a week beginning November 1, but the fire was ineffective and Union forces soon maneuvered Floyd into retreat. Early in 1862, Cox’s men built a new wire suspension bridge across the river, and in the spring Cox launched an offensive from Gauley Bridge and did not return, although Federal troops continued to occupy the area. In September, Confederate Gen. William W. Loring campaigned in the Kanawha River Valley and drove out the Union garrison, which destroyed the second bridge on September 11, but the Confederates soon abandoned the valley and it remained in Union hands until the end of the war. The first bridge on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike at this place had been begun in 1823 and completed in April 1825; after four acres of a local family’s land were condemned during construction for abutments and a tollhouse, the family’s head and one of his sons burned the bridge in July 1826, were tried, convicted, and imprisoned, and in October 1830 another son was denied a road maintenance contract because the turnpike superintendent suspected he had colluded in the burning.