Picket Fire at Germantown

Monday, September 1, 1862

At 7:00 A.M. the Twentieth Massachusetts deployed for picket duty with their brigade and two artillery batteries at the intersection of the Centreville and Little River roads near Germantown. They were deployed all day without incident until 9:00 P.M, when they were fired upon by retreating Confederate cavalry. In the attack the Twentieth suffered only one wounding, Andrew Beska of Company C. The attacking Confederate cavalry had positioned themselves between the units on picket duty and the larger body of the Union Army at Centreville. Union General Joseph Hooker was successful in driving off the attack.¹

References:
¹George A. Bruce, The Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 1861 - 1865 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Riverside Press, 1906), 145-6.