June 21, 1861 – A Skirmish

A little fight occurred near Seneca Mill, which is on the Maryland side of the Potomac, some 28 miles above Washington. Lt. Col. Everett in command of three companies of District volunteers, about 200 men, being a detachment of Col. Stone’s column, who started in canal boats from Georgetown, and were obliged to leave them a few miles up, and march, the Confederates having cut the dam.

At Seneca the detachment was fired upon by a party of 100 cavalry, on the Virginia side of the river. Col. Everett marched his men into the dry bed of the canal, and, sheltered by the opposite bank, returned the cavalry fire. Shots were exchanged for some time across the Potomac, a distance of seven-eights of a mile.

Col. Stone is at Darnestown with the Ninth New York regiment, ten miles from Rockville. The enemy burnt a bridge some two miles from Seneca, which crosses a branch of the Potomac over which the federal forces must advance across the river. A party of some twenty or more of the Confederates are throwing up an earth work on a high hill opposite Seneca Mills, and the federal troops, with a glass, can see them working at it.

At Cabin John bridge, the woman who keeps the lock house says that there is a secession flag opposite that point, in the woods, and that the woods is full of Confederate troops.

The Constitutional Guards, Capt. Degges, occupy the heights at Great Falls on the Maryland shore.— Washington Star.

Montgomery County Sentinel, Rockville, MD

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