On March 24, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 6,000 cavalrymen from Tennessee into southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina to disrupt the Confederate supply line by destroying sections of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, the North Carolina Railroad, and the Piedmont Railroad. He struck at Boone on March 28, headed into Virginia on April 2, and returned to North Carolina a week later; the raid ended at Asheville on April 26, the day Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Union Gen. William T. Sherman near Durham. On April 1, 1865, a column of Stoneman's cavalry under Gen. Alvan Gillem entered the thriving town of Jonesville, incorporated in 1811 and home to the Benham Hotel and the Methodist-affiliated Jonesville Male and Female Academy about two miles northwest of here on West Main Street. Gillem's vengeful home Yankees, Unionist North Carolinians, destroyed the academy's scientific equipment but overlooked the chapel's mellow-toned bell, cast in Troy, N.Y., of bronze and ninety-nine silver dollars. Meanwhile, on the north side of the Yadkin River in Surry County, Union Col. William J. Palmer's seasoned, well-behaved troops spared the cotton and gristmill in Elkin because Palmer, reared a Quaker, detested unnecessary destruction. Palmer's brigade then moved east on the river's north side before joining Gillem's men at Rockford. The Jonesville Academy never fully recovered from the effects of the war; its building, used for classes during the week and church services on Sunday, was torn down in 1915 to make way for a new Methodist sanctuary, and the silver-dollar bell still rings there at Jonesville First United Methodist Church. During the demolition, a poem allegedly inscribed inside the bell tower by students William Wilson, later a preacher, and L.L. Gwyn was discovered, and bell-ringer Van Eaton was the academy's wartime principal.