During the war, Union and Confederate forces crossed the Greenbrier River covered bridge many times as they attacked and counterattacked through Pocahontas County. The area, then called Marlin's Bottom, stood on or near three turnpikes whose hard-surfaced roads were strategically important for armies moving through rugged terrain, especially in brutal winters. Across the river, the Huttonsville, Marlin's Bottom, & Lewisburg Turnpike, now U.S. Route 219, linked the Staunton & Parkersburg Turnpike, U.S Route 250, on the north with Lewisburg on the south, while the Marlin's Bottom & Huntersville Turnpike to Huntersville and the Huntersville & Warm Springs Turnpike east to Warm Springs in Virginia now comprise State Route 39. In 1861, Confederate Gen, Robert E. Lee and his army marched from Huntersville across the bridge to the Tygart River Valley. In January 1862, Union Maj. George P. Webster of the 25th Ohio Infantry led a 738-man detachment from Huttonsville to seize Huntersville and destroy supplies; after crossing the river a mile north of here, his men routed the few defenders, burned the stores, and marched across the bridge back to Huttonsville with only one man wounded. Union Gen. William W. Averell crossed the bridge on the first of three raids, on August 20–30, 1863, and again on November 4, culminating in the Battle of Droop Mountain, 16 miles south. Confederate Gen. Thomas L. Rosser led 300 cavalrymen from his camp near Staunton to raid a Union supply depot at Beverly, January 7-18, 1865, and crossed the bridge as he returned. Civil engineer Lemuel Chenoweth designed and constructed the Greenbrier River Bridge in the 1850s; a masterful builder of wooden truss bridges, he constructed several in West Virginia that still stand, most notably the one at Philippi, site of the first land battle of the war on June 3, 1861. The Greenbrier River Bridge was demolished and replaced in 1915.