This Week in The Civil War: Sunday, June 12

Troop movements, bridge destroyed

A telegraphed dispatch via The Associated Press reports more U.S. army troops, backed by cavalry, are headed to Washington as Lincoln masses his forces. There are occasional sightings of Confederate soldiers on the Virginia side of the Potomac River and one dispatch June 8 notes a New York regiment "took five prisoners and three horses" and seized cattle from a party herding the livestock to "the secessionists." Reports indicate breastworks are being thrown up and cannons sent by federal forces to northern Virginia amid at least one minor skirmish near the Fairfax courthouse. One dispatch reports of federal forces: "The troops labor hard during the day and sleep soundly at night, disturbed only by an occasional exchange of shots between their guards and the Virginia scouts."

On June 14, The Boston Herald reports from Frederick Md., that "a special agent of the Associated Press has returned from Maryland Heights overlooking Harper's Ferry" in what is present-day West Virginia. The dispatch reports Confederate forces near there had withdrawn and, later, a "tremendous report was heard, caused by the explosion of mines" under the 100-foot-long Baltimore and Ohio road and rail span crossing the Potomac. "In one hour the entire structure was in ruins" and a telegraph station and railroad works of the federal government also were destroyed.