On January 1, 1862, Confederate Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson led four brigades west from Winchester, Va., to secure Romney in the fertile South Branch Valley on the North Western Turnpike. He attacked and occupied Bath on January 4 and shelled Hancock, Md.; he marched into Romney on January 14. Despite atrocious winter weather, Jackson's men destroyed telegraph lines and 100 miles of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track. Leaving Gen. William W. Loring's brigades in Romney, Jackson led the Stonewall Brigade back to Winchester on January 23. Loring followed on January 31, and the Federals reoccupied Romney on February 7. During the Bath-Romney Campaign, a Confederate army of 8,500 men twice bivouacked here, on January 2 and January 7-13, 1862, first while marching from Winchester to attack the Federal garrison at Bath and then after several days of fighting and tearing up Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track, before marching west to Romney. The weather deteriorated, bringing hardship to men and animals, and the army remained here for almost a week while horses pulling wagons and artillery were rough-shod for icy roads. Hundreds of wagons and horses, thousands of men, and relentless snow and rain turned the fields into a quagmire the soldiers sarcastically named Camp Mud. After three days, Jackson moved the camp half a mile to the northeast, and the men of the 33rd Virginia Infantry promptly named it Camp No Better. While his men lay in the mud exposed to the elements, Jackson enjoyed the hospitality and warmth of Oakleigh Manor, the home of local businessman and politician Washington Unger. During the campaign, some 2,000 men, almost a quarter of Jackson's force, became casualties not from bullets but from illness; many fell sick during the miserable bivouac and slowly staggered back to Winchester in small groups, and an unknown number died of pneumonia and other diseases related to extreme exposure.
