Eight months pregnant and anxious, Nannie Radford Wharton watched the nearby New River Bridge amid rumors of the enemy and wrote to her husband, Confederate Gen. Gabriel C. Wharton, that she had so often expected an attack there that she no longer believed it would come. Three days later, on May 10, 1864, she fled her home as Union and Confederate forces fought for control of the bridge. The Confederates desperately tried to save it, but after three hours of cannonading, Union troops set it ablaze. The struggle for the New River Bridge, the longest span and most vulnerable point along the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, was one of dozens of subjects the Whartons discussed in their wartime letters. General Wharton asked Nannie to bind their letters into one book, and when she completed the task she said they made a very ponderous volume. After the Civil War, the Whartons built Glencoe Mansion overlooking the reconstructed bridge, and the home remained in family hands for more than a century, preserving a rich collection of letters, journals, and documents. When the family sold the home, descendant Sally Wharton van Solkema and her husband Frits maintained the collection. More than 500 unique Civil War-era letters between Nannie and General Wharton survive as an invaluable historical resource on slavery, life, and history in Southwest Virginia.