During Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's 1862 Valley campaign, Confederate Col. Turner Ashby's cavalry and Chew's Battery halted Union Maj Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks's steady advance southward. Ashby engaged Union forces 28 times in April along Stony Creek and the Valley Pike. Confederate guns on Cemetery Hill dueled with Union batteries on Academy Hill across the center of Edinburg. In early October 1864, during the burning of the Shenandoah Valley, Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's troopers set the Edinburg Mill afire but extinguished it after two local girls protested.