 Historian Angus James Johnston, II, "To make sure the trains stayed trapped and to prevent Union armies under George B. McClellan and Robert Patterson from using the road, the Confederates [still officially Virginia Militia] began destroying bridges and track on May 25," taking down seventeen bridges over the next thirty-day period.The main stem of the B&O which ran mostly in or near Virginia was severed and cut off from the rest of the line by blasting a "massive rock formation onto the track at Point of Rocks.