Bridgewater
Bridgewater During the War
The town of Bridgewater was a center of Confederate logistical activity during the Civil War. It also sent one company of infantry, the Bridgewater Grays, to the 10th Virginia Infantry Regiment, which fought in most of the major battles in Virginia as well as at Gettysburg.
A Confederate remount station for cavalrymen from states other than Virginia was located a few blocks behind you. Confederate partisan ranger chief Capt. Charles Woodson of Missouri got mounts for his men here when they operated in the Valley in the summer and fall of 1864.
Bridgewater was also a collection point for Confederate tax-in-kind supplies, when Virginians with little cash paid their taxes in meat (live and cured), produce, tobacco, wool, hides, and anything else useful to the Confederate war effort. The town collection center was a two-story log cabin near here. At the approach of Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s Union army on the fall of 1864, the revenue agent let townspeople take whatever they wanted and then burned the rest on the cabin lawn to keep it out of Federal hands. Gen. George A. Custer’s U.S. Cavalry division occupied Bridgewater from September 30 to October 5, 1864.
Marker is on West Riverside Drive (State Highway 42).
Courtesy hmdb.org
