Potomac Creek Bridge
“Beanpoles and cornstalks,” is what President Abraham Lincoln called the once 80-foot-high, 400-foot-long Potomac Creek Bridge when he crossed it in 1862. Although the bridge no longer stands today, you can visit the the stone blocks of the south abutment and the commemorative marker of this once impressive historic structure.
This Potomac Creek Bridge once carried the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad across Potomac Creek as well as Confederate and Union soldiers during and after the Civil War. The Union army in particular built as many as four railroad bridges atop this same abutment. In May 1862, engineer Herman Haupt supervised unskilled Union infantrymen in harvesting two million feet of local lumber to construct the first of these structures, accomplishing this task in just nine days. The Potomac Creek Bridge abutment is part of the Civil War Trails. Visit their website at www.civilwartrails.org.
Location: A marker is in Daffan, Virginia, in Stafford County. Marker and abutment are on Leland Road, on the left when traveling north.