White House Bridge
Critical Crossing
On May 21, 1862. Confederate Gen. Thomas J.
“Stonewall” Jackson’s Valley Army plodded north
along this road to threaten Front Royal and out
flank Union Gen. Nathaniel Bank’s position at Strasburg. With the addition of Gen. Richard S.
Ewell’s division, Jackson’s command numbered
nearly 17,000 men and 50 guns. Philip Kauffman,
a young man at the time, remembered the Confederates as they crossed the Shenandoah River
on the White House Bridge and: “...Stonewall
himself as he ran the gauntlet, with bared head,
through the marching columns of his ‘foot cavalry.’
His faded gray uniform with stars on the collar,
his black beard and uncovered head, as he loped
by the White House on Old Sorrel, are as fresh
in my mind as on that day.”
Jackson’s Valley Army reached Front Royal
May 23. There, aided by spy Belle Boyd, it overwhelmed Banks’ 1,000-man detachment and
continued toward Winchester to attack the main
Union army, now in full retreat from Strasburg.
Jackson’s success was complete. He had defeated
and driven Banks from the Valley and alarmed
the Lincoln administration. In response to Jackson’s bold moves, a two-pronged Federal advance
was to converge at Strasburg in an attempt to
cut off Jackson’s line of withdrawal south.
Jackson marched south to escape. Two
Federal columns followed in close pursuit—Gen.
John C. Fremont on the Valley Pike and Gen.
James Shields in the Page Valley. If Shields could
march quickly enough to overtake Jackson's force
in the main Valley. he and Fremont could unite
and attack with a superior force. To prevent this
combination, Jackson ordered his cavalry commander, Turner Ashby, to destroy both the White
House and Columbia bridges. Ashby dispatched
Capt. Samuel Coyner’s Page County Company
which rode through “one of the most dreadful
thunderstorms” in time to burn the White House
Bridge at 4 a.m. on June 2—only one hour before
Shields’ advance guard reached the swollen river.
Shields, delayed for three days by the rising river,
was forced to abandon his plan to join Fremont
at New Market. Jackson defeated Fremont’s and
Shields’ commands separately at Cross Keys and
Port Republic June 8-9.
White House Bridge takes its name from
the small building immediately north of the
present-day bridge. This early structure was the
first home of pioneer Martin Kauffman. For a time
it served as a meeting house where, as a minister,
Kauffman served a Mennonite congregation.
Marker is on U.S. 211 west of the U.S. Route 380 South turnoff, on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
