March 14, 1862
A Sham that was not all A Sham--Cavalry Collision. Yesterday a company of the First Battalion of Connecticut Cavalry, encamped on the Island, for the want of some real fighting to do, concluded to indulge in a sham engagement. They selected the level piece of ground below the wooden bridge, and proceeded to execute various manoeuvres of an interesting and exciting character. At last one platoon made a furious charge upon another platoon, and the horses being spirited and not as well bitted as they will be, ran bolt up against each other or passed rapidly by on a dead run. The consequence was that three or four of the soldiers were pretty badly hurt, one horse killed outright and another so badly injured that he seems ever since to be laboring under some aberation of mind, which if not cured will render him perfectly useless. One soldier named Clark was badly cut in the cheek by a sabre, and is otherwise seriously injured. Another lost a knee cap and two or three others were bruised and scratched. It is said to have been a very reckless if not an inexcusably foolish proceeding.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: March 1862