Early on the morning of April 29, 1863, approximately 2,500 Confederate cavalrymen under the command of General William E. (Grumble) Jones attacked the town of Fairmont and its small Union garrison. Their main objective was to destroy the B & O railroad bridge spanning the Monongahela River. This raiding force had captured a small Union garrison at Greenland Gap, burned B & O railroad bridges at Oakland, Cranberry (now Terra Alta), and Independence (near Grafton), and stole numerous cattle and horses.  

After capturing Morgantown on Tuesday, April 28, Confederate forces crossed over to the West side of the Monongahela River at Westover and proceeded south toward Fairmont.  Arriving at Fairmont early on the morning of April 29, 1863, the Confederates, via Barrackville from the West. 

Opposing the Confederates were Union forces, totaling approximately 400 men. These men managed to remove some of the wooden planks in the bridge after they crossed.  They then kept up a brisk fire on the suspension bridge (currently Palatine Park). Eventually the Union defenders surrendered and the Confederates rounded up 260 Union prisoners and confined them in the Court House yard. They then proceeded to destroy the iron railroad bridge, which had cost nearly $500,000. to build. The rebels also destroyed a sawmill, a gunstock factory, the Fairmont National newspaper office and Governor Francis H. Pierpont’s library. Gen. Jones and his men resumed their march late that night after paroling the Union prisoners, ending the Battle of Fairmont, with a Confederate victory and the disruption of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. 

Union casualties were light despite the disparity in numbers.  Confederate casualties in the battle are the subject of controversy. Different historians put the Confederate casualties from as many as 60 to as low at 3 or 4.  However, according to the historical marker and different stories from both Union and Confederate eyewitnesses, 39 Confederates were apparently buried in a horseshoe shaped mass grave on the East Side of the river.

Terra Alta