The John T. Best family worked its South Hermitage farm tending cows, hogs, chickens, and fields of wheat, oats, and corn, and they had become used to the presence of soldiers because Union and Confederate troops had camped there several times after the Civil War began in 1861. During the fighting there, Confederate sharpshooters in the barn and artillery on the ridge behind the house struck Union troops at the bridges over the Monocacy River along the farm's southern edge, and Union artillery returned fire, hit the barn, and set it ablaze, scattering the sharpshooters. The Best family lost its grain, hay, and farm tools as the battle was only beginning. The farm was also the site where, during the 1862 Maryland Campaign, Robert E. Lee's Order No. 191 outlining his army's movements was found wrapped around cigars in a grove of trees at an abandoned Confederate camp, but Union Gen. George McClellan did not use the information to its full advantage at the Battle of Antietam.