Doors to the Past

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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Templates in Time