On April 29, 1863, during a Confederate raid against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Gen. William E. Jones directed an attack on Fairmont from the foot of the suspension bridge over the Monongahela River between Fairmont and Palatine. He split his force, sending the main column up the Beverly and Fairmont Turnpike on the Fairmont side toward the railroad bridge at present-day 12th Street, while the 12th Virginia Cavalry and the 35th Virginia Battalion fought across the suspension bridge. Union defenders at the Palatine foundry included the Fairmont and Mannington Home Guards and detachments from the 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry and the 6th West Virginia Infantry. Although the foundry garrison had removed the bridge floorboards, the Confederates replaced them, charged across, captured the foundry, and rode upstream to the railroad bridge. A trainload of Union reinforcements arrived from Grafton but was driven off. Jones reported 12 killed and many wounded among the defenders and only three Confederates wounded. That night he paroled 260 Federal prisoners confined in the courthouse yard before leaving to attack Bridgeport. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge was destroyed, though it was repaired a few weeks later.