Hyattstown became a front line village in September 1862 when Confederate cavalry in Urbana clashed with Union cavalry reconnoitering from Clarksburg. On the evening of September 8, 1862, Maj. Alonzo W. Adams and his 1st New York Cavalry came over the crest south of town, saw Confederates, charged into Hyattstown, and captured two Southern troopers. Soon afterward, his men skirmished with the 1st North Carolina Cavalry north of town, briefly interrupting J.E.B. Stuart’s ball in Urbana as partygoers rushed to assist their comrades. Fighting broke out again there the next morning and continued intermittently throughout the day. By September 11, Col. Thomas T. Munford’s command had replaced the North Carolinians, and the 1st U.S. Cavalry had joined the New Yorkers. After a heavy exchange of artillery fire that damaged houses in Hyattstown, the Confederates withdrew northwest with the rest of the army, and the Union VI Corps soon occupied the village. Jesse Hyatt, who built a hotel there, laid out Hyattstown in 1798, and his hotel later hosted distinguished travelers including Andrew Jackson on his way to his inauguration. Hyattstown exemplifies the linear roadside town of its period, and most of its original buildings still stand.
