In June 1775 the Second Continental Congress called for the raising of 10 companies of riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to aid General George Washington at the siege of Boston. In Virginia, the Berkeley County Committee of Safety selected Captain Hugh Stephenson to command one of that colony’s two companies. Within a week Stephenson had raised 98 men from in and around Mecklenburg, Virginia (now Shepherdstown, West Virginia). The diary of Henry Bedinger, a 22-year-old from Shepherdstown, who served as fourth sergeant in the brigade, provides a day-by-day account of the Bee Line March. His diary was included in Historic Shepherdstown, a history written in 1910 by Danske Dandridge.