The 2nd Virginia Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment raised in today's western Virginia and what became West Virginia during the American Civil War for service in the Confederate States Army. It would combine with the 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia infantry regiments and the Rockbridge Artillery Battery and fight as part of what became known as the Stonewall Brigade, mostly with the Army of Northern Virginia. Units The 2nd Virginia was assembled at Charles Town on April 18, 1861, then moved (gathering further units en route) to Harper's Ferry to seize the armory. Its ten companies were from the counties of Clarke, Frederick, Jefferson, and Berkeley. Campaigns As the volunteer units approached the armory, they heard a roar and saw a flash as Lt. Roger Jones and his U.S. army regulars blew up the arsenal at 10p.m. Capt. John Rowan and the Jefferson Guards led the volunteers into Harpers Ferry three hours later, meeting no opposition and noticing that while 15,000 weapons had been destroyed, townspeople had saved the buildings and weapon-producing machinery inside. That machinery was soon shipped to the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, Virginia for Confederate use. VMI professor Thomas Jonathan Jackson arrived on Monday, April 29 and organized the volunteer craftsmen, laborers and farmers of the ten drilled companies into regiments, revolutionizing their notions of war in a short time. Col. Allen and Lt. Col. Francis Lackland had both graduated in the VMI class of 1849. Captains John W. Rowan (of the Jefferson Guards of Charles Town), Vincent Moore Butler (of the Hamtramck Guards of Shepherdstown), William N. Nelson (of the Nelson Rifles of Millwood) and George W. Chambers (of the Floyd Guards raised in Harpers Ferry) had military experience in Mexico. Throughout May (as the units were mustered officially into Virginia state service mid-month), Jackson assiduously drilled the men, 12 hours each day; they learned complex maneuvers and began jelling into a single unit. The unit became part of the Army of the Shenandoah and evacuated Harpers Ferry on June 14, 1861, upon orders of General Joseph E. Johnston, who considered the location untenable. Troops burned the Shepherdstown bridge (private Henry Kyd Douglas realizing that his father was a stockholder in the property being destroyed) and joined Johnston's army four miles south of Charles Town. They would then change camp seven times in 17 days. Their first skirmish was on July 2, 1861,