by Quint, Ryan;
Commander John Taylor Wood was in charge of the contingent of Confederate naval forces who were supposed to help Johnson attack the Federal troops at Point Lookout. Wood’s armada would then ferry the prisoners back to Virginia. (nhhc)
Harry Gilmor, Johnson’s second-in-command during the raid, was involved in some of the war’s first bloodshed. On April 19, 1861, as the 6th Massachusetts State Militia marched through the streets of Baltimore, a pro-Secessionist mob attacked them. Racing through the streets, the Massachusetts men opened fire to defend themselves on their way to the railroad station. By the time the fighting in the streets was finished, 16 people were killed and dozens more wounded. Because of his actions, Harry Gilmor was arrested and thrown into jail at Fort McHenry, the same place the Star Spangled Banner was written in 1814. (loc)
With the sound of guns firing along the banks of Monocacy River on July 9, Johnson, Gilmor, and the rest of the brigade rode eastward to Westminster, Maryland, approximately 25 miles from Frederick.
After receiving welcomed foodstuffs from pro-Southern Westminster residents, and riding astride a beautiful black mare from a farmer of the area, Gilmor and the Maryland cavalrymen of Johnson’s command struck out on their next assignment: to disable the Northern Central Railroad that connected Baltimore to points north. Additionally, telegraph wires that connected the Charm City of Maryland to the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg were also to be cut.
Gilmor’s men reached the first bridge, over Gunpowder River, located three miles above Cockeysville, Maryland, on the morning of July 10. By mid morning, Johnson’s main force, following behind Gilmor, reached the Baltimore County town of Reisterstown, twelve miles to the west. The two Marylanders then reconvened in Cockeysville, where Gilmor received updated orders: With a complement of 135 men, including Gilmor’s “own command” who were “present with serviceable horses and fifty of the 1st Maryland,” he was to move quickly toward another bridge over the Gunpowder River, this one utilized by the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad.
During David Hunter’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, Union troops had burned the home of Virginia governor John Letcher (above). In retaliation, during his raid, Bradley Johnson ordered the destruction of the home of Maryland’s governor, Augustus Bradford (below). (loc)(loc)
Although his raiding force was small, Gilmor spread alarm and consternation among Union authorities and civilians in the Baltimore region. When his troopers departed Cockeysville on Sunday, July 12, and made their feint toward Baltimore, hundreds of Union volunteers and militiamen were called to provide defense for numerous fortifications around that city and its namesake county. However, there was not enough time or manpower to guard every potential Rebel target, and when the Southern raiders reached the Gunpowder River at Meredith’s Bridge, situated near Towsontown, in Baltimore County, the span was left unguarded.
Gilmour, a Maryland native, stopped at Glen Ellen, his birthplace, and visited his family. The rest of Sunday was spent reliving happier times of yesteryear.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Confederate cavalry raiding force under Johnson slowly made its way out of Cockeysville, then stopped at Hayfield farm, the home of a friend of Johnson’s. Scouts were directed to head toward Baltimore to verify the accuracy of intelligence Johnson received.
With speed being essential to reach the Southern prisoners at Point Lookout, the laziness of Sunday afternoon was most striking. Gilmor, however, would recoup some of the time by continuing his movement to Bel Air during the night, and Johnson would soon head for Green Spring Valley to the northwest of Baltimore and, by daybreak, be in sight of Maryland Governor Augustus Bradford’s country house. Johnson ordered the estate torched in retaliation for Union forces under Maj. Gen. David Hunter burning Virginia Governor John Letcher’s home in Lexington, Virginia, in May of 1864.
On Monday, Johnson’s scouts returned from Baltimore with the startling news that transports awaited offshore with Union reinforcements— chiefly the VI and XIX Corps. This news was passed to a messenger who quickly jumped on his horse and sped across country to try to find General Early.
Johnson’s men frequently stopped trains and pillaged them during their raid through Maryland. During one such stop the Confederate troopers captured Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin. Franklin (below) soon escaped, though, when his captors fell asleep. (fli)(loc)
During this very hot day, a very cool treat awaited the Southern cavaliers as they headed south into Howard County. Near Owings Mills, the Confederates overtook two wagons headed into market, earmarked on the side: “Painter’s Ice Cream.” Johnson allowed his men to have a treat. Unfamiliar with this new concoction and lacking the proper utensils to consume it, the Southern soldiers used whatever accoutrements were available—slouch hats, blankets, and buckets. A majority of the soldiers had never seen this type of “frozen mush” and were not sure if they liked “frozen vittles.”
One poor soldier stuffing his mouth full of ice cream suddenly yelped in pain. He had the proverbial “brain freeze,” as it is known today. One of his comrades, finding it amusing, related that the poor Southwestern Virginian “clapped his hand to both sides of his head . . . jumped up and down . . . it hurt so bad he forgot to spit it out.” The “buttermilk Rangers and their ice cream” became a light-hearted memory to the survivors of Johnson’s cavalrymen after the war.
The rest of that day was spent in typical cavalry raiding fashion and, by evening, Johnson’s Confederates encamped close to the county border of Montgomery, situated between Baltimore and Washington.
Gilmor’s men had continued raiding round Baltimore. There, they suffered the only fatality of the raid: Sgt. Eugene Fields was killed by buckshot from a Unionist farmer near the hamlet of Kingsville, on the Bel Air Turnpike that took travelers out of the city. Although the plucky farmer escaped, his dwelling did not.
Gilmor’s men arrived at Magnolia Station on the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad that evening and were able to halt two northbound trains. One of the captures that night was Maj. Gen. William Franklin, recently in service out west.
After a short engagement with Union forces near the Gunpowder River Bridge, Gilmor’s troopers rode out of Magnolia Station in the later afternoon of Monday in the direction of Baltimore. Meanwhile, a detail was left to keep an eye on the prisoners. Intelligence, by way of a friend, informed Gilmor that Baltimore was heavily fortified, so the cavalier changed course. Instead of heading toward the city, he cut across country. When he met back up with the prisonerguard, Gilmor was aghast to find his soldiers asleep. The prisoners, including the Confederates’ richest prize, Major General Franklin, had escaped while the pickets dozed in the fence rails!
Monday night passed into Tuesday with Confederate cavalry in the corridor around Baltimore and the nation’s capital. The next morning, Johnson’s men headed toward Beltsville. They were still nearly 80 miles from Point Lookout.
Luckily for the Marylander, that Tuesday saw a messenger from Early approach the column. Johnson was to abort the mission to Point Lookout and instead head toward Early’s main force. No explanation was given, as the courier had not been privy to that intelligence. As one historian has noted, this messenger saved Johnson the embarrassment of having to tell the mercurial and hot-tempered Early that he would never achieve the objective.
Johnson’s forces quickly moved to rendezvous with Early, cutting cross country in sight of Union pickets on the defense parapets of Washington, D.C. With the raid at an end, the majority of the rank and file saw the adventure as a success. Supplies, horses, and mules were in tow back to the Confederate army, life and commerce were derailed for days around Baltimore, and no pitched battle had been fought.
At 9:00 p.m. that Tuesday night, Johnson’s column found the road from Washington, D.C., through Rockville—the same approach Early used to head toward and retreat back out from the capital. Three hours later, Johnson reported to Early and received his next assignment: assist with the reargua
rd duties of the other Confederate cavalry. Gilmor—after unsuccessfully trying to find his escaped prisoners—arrived soon thereafter, catching up with Johnson and Early in Poolesville, Maryland, in the vicinity of the Potomac River.
Early’s entire campaign was an audacious task from the beginning, and soldiers throughout the Confederacy eagerly sought information. “[W]e are very anxious to hear from Early,” one Confederate soldier in the trenches of Petersburg wrote. “I fear he has undertaken more than he can do with his small force, and he is likely to come to grief.” In the middle of all the wagging tongues, news of the Point Lookout Plan had leaked, compromising the mission almost from the get-go. Northern newspapers caught wind of the idea and made note that Union authorities would begin transferring prisoners from Point Lookout to Elmira, New York City Harbor, and other points north.
In the end, the raid temporarily boosted Confederate morale while putting another dent in the morale of the Northern war populace. Overall, though, the outcome of the Johnson-Gilmor raid was negligible. Besides creating a temporary headache—to Confederate cavalrymen tasting ice cream for the first time, to the local populace, and to Union authorities—the raid was just a small disturbance during Early’s invasion.
The initial reasoning behind the raid showed the desperation of—and imagination of—the Confederate high command to reverse the tide of war in 1864. However, the entire mission indeed proved “utterly impossible for man or horse to accomplish.”
PHILLIP GREENWALT is a supervisory ranger with the National Park Service. He is co-author of three books in the ECW Series and co-founder of Emerging Revolutionary War.
A historic marker—one of several in the Chambersburg town square—recounts the burning of the town in the summer of 1864. (cm)
McCausland’s Raid and the Burning of Chambersburg
APPENDIX E
BY AVERY C. LENTZ
During the initial months of the summer campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, Union Gen. David Hunter’s forces had been especially destructive to Southern property—including many private residences of Confederate political officials and, more famously, the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. As a result, his counterpart—Lt. Gen. Jubal Early—vowed that the Northern people would likewise know the price of the war and how horrible it could be.
During Early’s campaign in Maryland, he demanded ransom from many large cities and towns—such as Hagerstown and Frederick. As his forces withdrew in late July, Early set his sights on another Northern town which had been a significant locale during previous invasions: the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
To make the raid, Gen. Early selected Brig. Gen. John McCausland to lead a force north of the Mason-Dixon line to Chambersburg. Early ordered McCausland to ransom the town for a sum of $100,000 in gold or $500,000 in greenbacks; if the town could not meet those demands, they would face the consequences. Early also made it clear that McCausland was to return immediately south to rejoin the army as soon as possible afterwards.
When McCausland received his orders on July 28, 1864, he was summoned to General Early’s headquarters in Martinsburg, West Virginia. By his own account, McCausland “nearly fell out of the saddle when he read the orders” and “did not agree with General Early’s way of conducting war” for he preferred to follow Gen. Lee’s example during the Gettysburg campaign. As the story of Chambersburg has been told over the decades, there has been dispute between Generals Early and McCausland over what justified the raid to Chambersburg and who had the last say in the decision to burn the town. Seeing as both men made allegations against each other at the beginning of the 20th century when they were approaching their deaths, it is still unclear who is right or wrong.
Regardless, Early ordered McCausland to head north with his brigade of 1,400 cavalry troopers—the 14th, 16th, 17th, and 22nd Virginia Cavalry regiments—along with the two ordnance rifles of T. E. Jackson’s Company and the two smoothbores of J. H. McClanahan’s Company of the Horse Artillery.
McCausland was also informed that his unit would not be conducting this raid alone. They were to meet up with Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson’s Confederate cavalry brigade at Hammond’s Mill, Virginia, on July 28 and proceed north across the Potomac River and into Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Johnson was a native of Frederick and had served as a delegate at the National Democratic Convention in Baltimore during the 1860 election before his delegation withdrew from the convention and united with a faction of Southern Whigs who supported Breckenridge for president during that election. Being a Confederate sympathizer, Johnson went on to form a company of the Confederate 1st Maryland Infantry. By 1864, he was commanding a cavalry force of 1,400 men in Early’s army.
Johnson’s force consisted of the 1st and 2nd Maryland Cavalry regiments and 8th and 21st Virginia Cavalry regiments alongside the 27th, 36th, and 37th Virginia Cavalry battalions with two 3-inch ordnance rifles of the 2nd Maryland (Baltimore) Light Artillery. This gave McCausland an approximate total of 2,800 troopers and six cannon—a formidable force that had no substantial Union force in their path to obstruct them. Major General Darius Couch commanded the Federal Department of the Susquehanna during the summer of 1864, but he had mostly emergency militia infantry and cavalry regiments to resist hardened Confederate veterans that outnumbered and outgunned his forces immensely.
Chambersburg was no stranger to visits from either army. Confederate and Union soldiers—such as the Federals making camp in these church pews—had both been through the town the summer before. (loc)
In other words, the odds of successfully defending Chambersburg from the Confederate raiders were extremely grim.
The raid commenced in the early afternoon of July 28, 1864, with Maj. Harry Gilmor’s combined force of the 1st and 2nd Maryland Cavalry crossing the Potomac River at McCoy’s Ferry on July 29 at approximately 5:00 a.m. Gilmor advanced to the Baltimore Pike and secured the road in both directions, and then headed west down the Cove Road to Cherry Run to serve as a rear guard once McCausland and Johnson’s combined force advanced north towards Clear Spring, Maryland.
The first Union forces the Confederates encountered was a 21-man detachment of the 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry at Cherry Run, who were caught by surprise. All but three of the 21-man detachment were captured without firing a shot.
Another skirmish ignited at Clear Spring itself, where Maj. Shadrack Foley’s 350-man force from the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry made a gallant, yet futile charge at the bulk of the 1st Marylanders, arrayed in skirmish lines around the village. The 1st Maryland, joined by the 36th and 37th Virginia Cavalry battalions, easily checked the Pennsylvanians. Foley was forced to fall back down the Baltimore Pike towards Hagerstown where he set up a defensive position around Conococheague Creek. Gilmor pursued with detachments from the 1st Maryland, but were beaten back by Foley’s troopers, who fought dismounted with Spencer repeating rifles in the underbrush along the creek. Gilmor’s fell back to Clear Spring.
The main body of McCausland and Johnson’s force began crossing the Potomac at McCoy’s Ferry around 6 a.m. and continued to cross until 11 a.m. due to the number of men. In an effort to divert Union attention away from McCausland’s raiders, Early sent the Confederate divisions of Robert Rodes and Stephen Ramseur near Williamsport, Maryland, where they crossed the river and began making a mock-advance toward Hagerstown to draw any Union force in the area away from McCausland.
After passing through Clear Spring, McCausland and Johnson’s troopers advanced north into Pennsylvania toward the town of Mercersburg. After the main body of McCausland’s force had passed through Clear Spring, Gilmor followed them as a rear guard, having suffered 17 casualties in the morning skirmish. The 36th Virginia Cavalry battalion led McCausland’s raid north and again ran into Union resistance around the village of Shimpstown, Pennsylvania, at around 3 p.m. on July 29. The 45-man force was a detachment of Company F, 6th U.S. Cavalry under the command of Lt. Hancock T. McLean.
Unlike th
eir comrades in the 14th Pennsylvania, McLean’s men were veterans and had moved into the path of the massive Confederate force after coming from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on July 26, and arriving in Chambersburg on the morning of the 27th. From Chambersburg, McLean swung his men to Mercersburg in the early morning of the 28th, where he sent a detachment of 15 men under a Lt. Jones to Shimpstown, where they set up a picket line.
The Union soldiers made contact with Virginia cavalrymen on the 29th, and McLean rushed the rest of his small force to confront the 200 men of the 36th Virginia Cavalry battalion. After a two-hour skirmish, McLean withdrew to St. Thomas, Pennsylvania, seven miles west of Chambersburg, where his forced was joined by a detachment from the 3rd U.S. Cavalry under Lt. Frank Stanwood.
By the evening of the 29th, McCausland and Johnson’s troopers arrived in Mercersburg and began advancing toward Chambersburg as early as 11:30 p.m. More cavalry skirmishing erupted around 2 a.m. as McLean received aggressive skirmishing from McCausland’s immediate force. Due to the night skirmish, McCausland did not push forward immediately until around 4:30 a.m., when daylight began to illuminate McLean’s small force, and he was finally forced to open with canister fire. McLean’s men then retreated through Chambersburg around 5 a.m. on the morning of July 30, to link up with the columns of Maj. Gen. William Averell’s cavalry division as he pulled back from Greencastle all the way to Shippensburg. General Couch had evacuated his department headquarters from Chambersburg at 3 a.m. after the fighting at St. Thomas began, and then retired to the state capitol of Harrisburg.
