Confederate Gen. Albert G. Jenkins led 550 cavalrymen on a 500-mile raid from Salt Sulphur Springs from Aug. 22 to Sept. 12, 1862, attacking Federal forces and destroying military stores. He captured and paroled 300 Union soldiers, killed or wounded 1,000 others, destroyed about 5,000 small arms, and seized funds from a U.S. paymaster. At Ravenswood, he forded the Ohio River and raised the Confederate flag in Ohio on Sept. 4, then captured Racine, recrossed the river, and ended the raid at Red House on the Kanawha River. On August 30, 1862, Jenkins and his cavalry halted a few miles east of Buckhannon on the Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike, knowing that an immense quantity of Union supplies and several thousand small arms were stockpiled there. After resting, they proceeded down French Creek toward Buckhannon. The Federal garrison, warned the day before, quickly called units into service, including Co. E, 10th West Virginia Infantry, the Upshur Battery and Battery E, West Virginia Light Artillery, and the Home Militia, whose members brought personal shotguns, muskets, and rifles because they were not regularly equipped. When the defenders marched to Battle Hill to entrench on August 30, they found the Confederates already there. The Federals quickly threw up breastworks of rails, logs, and straw stacks nearby, including across the junction of Marion and Kanawha Street below the hill and near the triangle park. Jenkins attacked, and the defenders fought until Confederate fire grew too hot for them, forcing a hasty retreat that scattered them in every direction. Jenkins's men gathered all the arms and supplies they could carry away, burned the rest, and then headed for Weston. They also took all the surgical instruments and left only a handsaw to treat wounded Federals.