During the American Civil War, the Valley Pike was a key transportation link in both Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862 and the Valley Campaigns of 1864. The macadamized road enabled fast movement of heavy wagon trains and gun carriages even during rainy weather, when dirt roads turned into mud. Confederate General Stonewall Jackson marched his infantry soldiers—nicknamed foot cavalry—up and down the Valley and through various mountain gaps, such as Swift Run Gap and Thornton Gap, and make sudden appearances in front of Union troops in the Piedmont region on the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.