Soldiers from the neighborhood were engaged in battle from Gettysburg to 

Georgia and were enlisted under various commands. But little of the actual 

fighting was done in this section, but one interesting skirmish took place 

early in the war at Poar's Hill near Ona. In that fight many shots were 

fired, one soldier was wounded and afterward died from his wounds, and the 

neighborhood was thrown into such an excitement as had never been known 

within its limits. One excited citizen said that the bullets flew so thick 

that he could have swung a basket around his head and caught it full. 

Another interesting occurrence of the struggle was the capture for a few 

minutes of Captain John Harshbarger of the Union army by John W. Yates who 

was in the Confederate service. In the road just below the present 

gasoline plant, the latter came upon the former a few hundred yards in 

advance of his command, which greatly surprised him as he was unaware of 

the presence of a Confederate soldier in the neighborhood, and demanded 

and secured his horse and saber and escaped to his own company back in 

Dixie. The two had been neighbors and the best of friends, and after the 

war so remained through life. Some years ago the saber was returned to the 

son of Captain Harshbarger, who lives at Milton, a gift doubtless the more 

highly prized because of its varied associations and history. 

One phase of that unfortunate struggle that divided this and other 

communities is worthy of mention as an example to this and future 

generations. Early in the war this section of Virginia passed into the 

control of the Union army. The fathers and grandfathers and their families 

of both the Union and Confederate sympathizers were of necessity left at 

home in the neighborhood, while the younger generation of military age 

fought in the ranks. Those of the older group who supported the Union, 

almost without exception, were steadfast in their friendships and always 

ready to protect their neighbors who sympathized with the Confederate 

cause. It is told of one elderly mother who refused to speak to her own 

son for a time, because he had taken a horse from a Confederate 

sympathizer with whom she had long held a feeling of cordial friendship. 

A complete list of the Union and Confederate soldiers from this immediate 

section would be of interest, as would also an account of some of their 

more thrilling experiences. But such a narrative is impossible in a brief 

account like this, and its writing will need be referred to another writer 

and at another time. 

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