Mrs. James Councill heard the firing and stepped out onto her porch, her child in her arms, to investigate when “a volley of balls splintered into the wood all around her.” Home guardsmen and citizens grabbed their weapons and tried to fight back. Steel Frazier, a 15-year-old boy, was chased by six Federals to a fence, where Frazier took cover, turned, and took on his pursuers, killing two of them. He then retreated into the woods. Calvin Green tried to surrender, but when the Federals continued to shoot at him, he resumed the fight and shattered the arm of one of the invaders with his musket.

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Other citizens, however, weren’t so lucky. Warren Green was shot to death as he tried to surrender; Jacob Councill, an elderly man over the conscript age, was shot down beside his plow despite his appeals for mercy. When the smoke cleared, the Federals had killed nine, captured 68, plundered several homes and burned the local jail.

With Boone neutralized, Stoneman decided to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains and move to Wilkesboro, about 50 miles away on the Yadkin River, to obtain supplies and fresh horses. He opted to separate his command to accomplish this, sending Gillem with Brown’s brigade and the artillery, followed by Miller’s brigade, on a roundabout route to Wilkesboro in order to destroy a factory near Lenoir. Stoneman would take the direct route, through Deep Gap to Wilkesboro.

At 9 p.m. on March 28, Gillem reached Patterson’s Factory, a cotton mill at the foot of the Blue Ridge, and took the workers by surprise. Finding a useful supply of corn and bacon, the men spent the night there. The next day the column moved on to Wilkesboro, leaving a rear guard to destroy the factory and any food that remained.

By late afternoon of March 29, Gillem’s men had caught up with Stoneman just outside Wilkesboro. That evening, Stoneman sent the 12th Ohio Cavalry into Wilkesboro where “they came in with a yell and ran completely through the place, frightening a small body of Confederates out of their wits and out of the place.” The weather presented a problem that night, however, as “the very heavens opened their floodgates,” swelling the Yadkin River so much that it became impassable. Stoneman’s men had been in the process of crossing the river in order to head north when it rose, thus becoming separated by the river. At least one man drowned during the aborted crossing.

The blue cavalry could do no more than inch a few miles east until the Yadkin became passable. Their time was spent “carrying off all the horses and mules, and burning the factories,” as well as doing a little drinking, for “the stuff was warm in the stills.” The Federals even seized the horse of the local citizen James Gordon, one of Jeb Stuart’s men who had been killed at Spotsylvania, and paraded it in front of the man’s house for a couple of hours.

It was not until April 2 that Stoneman was able to ford the Yadkin River and get his men moving once again. The Federals pointed their horses north, toward Virginia and the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad.

The march to the Virginia border took Stoneman’s men through Dobson to Mount Airy, N.C. While in Mount Airy, the Federals learned that an enemy supply train had passed through the town earlier that afternoon on its way across the Virginia border to Hillsville. Stoneman immediately ordered Palmer to pursue and capture the train. On the morning of April 3, the rest of the division followed Palmer’s detachment north. By 1 p.m., the Federals had reached Hillsville, where they caught up with Palmer’s empty-handed detachment. The pursuit was renewed, however, and within a few hours 17 Confederate wagons filled with forage were in the hands of Brown’s brigade.

Stoneman divided his forces once more in Hillsville in order to cover more of the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. He ordered Miller to take 500 men from his brigade, move to Wytheville, and destroy the railroad bridges and supplies there. Stoneman took the main body in the direction of Jacksonville, Va.

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