Judith White McGuire, Diary of a southern refugee during the war, by a lady of Virginia

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[162] command a body of soldiers, whom he sent to break the dam in the Potomac, which at that point supplied the Ohio and Chesapeake Canal with water-(it also worked his mother's mill)-and the breaking of which, if effectually done, would prevent the Yankees from using the canal for transportation. This dangerous project was undertaken most cheerfully, and was most thoroughly effected. It was necessarily done in the night, to elude the vigilance of the Yankees on the Maryland shore. In the dead hour of the winter's night did some of the first gentlemen's sons in the South, who happened to belong to that portion of the army, work up to their waists in water, silently, quietly, until the work was finished; nor were they discovered until day dawned, and revealed them retiring; then shot and shell began to fall among them furiously. One of the brave band fell! Notwithstanding their danger, his companions could not leave him, but lifted him tenderly, and carried him to a place of safety, where he might at least have Christian burial by sympathizing friends. The large old mill, which had for many years sent its hundreds and thousands of barrels of flour to the Baltimore and Georgetown markets, still stood, though its wheels were hushed by the daring act of the night before. It had been used of late by the Yankees for their own purposes. The enemy seemed to have forgotten to destroy it, but the Union men could not allow their old friend and neighbour, though the widow of one whom they had once delighted to honour, to have such valuable property left to her; they immediately communicated to the Yankees that it belonged to the mother of the leader of the party who broke the dam. It was, of course, shelled and burned to the ground, except its old stone walls, which defied their fury; but if it helped the cause, the loss of the property