Gilmor's Raid, also known as The Magnolia Station Train Raid, was a foraging and disruptive cavalry raid that was part of an overall campaign against Union railroads, led by Maj. Harry W. Gilmor with 135 men from the First and Second Maryland Cavalry regiments. It was authorized by Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early during his Valley Campaigns of 1864, which threatened Washington, D.C., during the American Civil War.
As Early advanced north and east toward Baltimore, Maryland, a Union force led by Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace met Early's forces and was defeated in the Battle of Monocacy on July 9, 1864. The cavalry brigade of the Second Corps, led by Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson advanced further eastward into Maryland, led by cavalry forces under the command of Maj. Harry W. Gilmor. Upon reaching Westminster, Maryland, on July 10, Gilmor attacked Union cavalry forces, driving them out. Johnson's main cavalry force continued pressing Wallace's retreating Union troops, pursuing them into Cockeysville-Hunt Valley, Maryland, north of Baltimore, and then turned south destroying tracks and trestle bridges along the Northern Central Railway. [1] Upon reaching Timonium, Maryland, Johnson divided the Second Corps cavalry brigade. He sent the commander of 2nd Maryland Cavalry, Maj. Gilmor, with a 135 detachment made up of both the 1st and 2nd Maryland Cavalry southeastward. The second part of Johnson's cavalry simultaneously turned south and headed toward the prison camp at Point Lookout, Maryland at the confluence of the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay.
Maj. Gilmor's cavalry detachment moved undetected through Baltimore County, Maryland, and into Harford County, Maryland. They first stopped at the General Store in Jerusalem Mill now popularly known as McCourtney's, capturing supplies and horses, and then arrived on the morning of July 11 at the Gunpowder River bridge, a railroad bridge near Magnolia Station, close to Joppa, Maryland, which belonged to the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad. Defending the railroad bridge at both ends were seventy troops from the 159th Ohio Infantry. Gilmor's troops captured two trains, one north- and one southbound, evacuated the passengers, captured supplies on the train, and set fire to one of the trains before backing it over and partially destroying the railroad trestle bridge. The telegraph communications lines were also cut along the bridge. Among the passengers captured on the northbound train was Union Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin, who was taken as a prisoner of war back to Virginia. After completing the actions at Magnolia Station, Gilmor's men headed back west, across Baltimore County, and stopped at Ady's Hotel, near Towson, Maryland to rest and refresh his men. Shortly afterward a large cavalry patrol from Baltimore arrived, which outnumbered Gilmor's men more than two to one. Gilmor attacked and defeated the Union cavalry patrol, and pursued them as far as Govanstown. Gilmor later claimed that if his men had not been so tired, he would have gone into Baltimore and captured the city. Gilmor's detachment then proceeded back through Green Spring Valley, to recover his prisoner, Gen. Franklin, who had escaped. After resting for a few hours, Gilmor's detachment rejoined Gen. Early's main forces as they crossed the Potomac River back into Virginia.
Only one man was lost in Gilmor's detachment during the raid, Sgt. Field, who was shot at point blank range by Ishmael Day in a dispute near Day's residence in the thirteenth district of Baltimore. Sgt. Field was leading Gilmor's advance guard and refused to pass under a Union flag on the Day residence. Ishmael Day suddenly shot Sgt. Field and fled, and Gilmor's main party proceeded to burn the Day residence in retaliation.
The Richmond–Petersburg campaign was a series of battles around Petersburg, Virginia, fought from June 9, 1864, to March 25, 1865, during the American Civil War. Although it is more popularly known as the siege of Petersburg, it was not a classic military siege, in which a city is usually surrounded and all supply lines are cut off, nor was it strictly limited to actions against Petersburg. The campaign consisted of nine months of trench warfare in which Union forces commanded by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant assaulted Petersburg unsuccessfully and then constructed trench lines that eventually extended over 30 miles (48 km) from the eastern outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, to around the eastern and southern outskirts of Petersburg. Petersburg was crucial to the supply of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army and the Confederate capital of Richmond. Numerous raids were conducted and battles fought in attempts to cut off the Richmond and Petersburg Railroad. Many of these battles caused the lengthening of the trench lines.
Jackson's Valley campaign, also known as the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1862, was Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's spring 1862 campaign through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia during the American Civil War. Employing audacity and rapid, unpredictable movements on interior lines, Jackson's 17,000 men marched 646 miles (1,040 km) in 48 days and won several minor battles as they successfully engaged three Union armies, preventing them from reinforcing the Union offensive against Richmond.
James Harrison Wilson was a United States Army topographic engineer and a Union Army Major General in the American Civil War. He served as an aide to Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan during the Maryland Campaign before joining Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's army in the Western Theater, where he was promoted to brigadier general. In 1864, he transferred from engineering to the cavalry, where he displayed notable leadership in many engagements of the Overland Campaign, though his attempt to destroy Lee’s supply lines failed when he was routed by a much smaller force of Confederate irregulars.
Grierson's Raid was a Union cavalry raid during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. It ran from April 17 to May 2, 1863, as a diversion from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's main attack plan on Vicksburg, Mississippi.
The Battle of Monocacy was fought on July 9, 1864, approximately 6 miles (9.7 km) from Frederick, Maryland, as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864 during the American Civil War. Confederate forces under Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early defeated Union forces under Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace. The battle was part of Early's raid through the Shenandoah Valley and into Maryland in an attempt to divert Union forces away from Gen. Robert E. Lee's army under siege at Petersburg, Virginia.
The Battle of Front Royal, also known as Guard Hill or Cedarville, was fought May 23, 1862, in Warren County, Virginia, as part of Confederate Army Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's Campaign through the Shenandoah Valley during the American Civil War. Front Royal demonstrated Jackson's use of Valley topography and mobility to unite his own forces while dividing those of his enemies. At a minimal cost, he forced the withdrawal of a large Union army by striking at its flank and threatening its rear. This caused President Abraham Lincoln to react by sending General Irvin McDowell's forces that were intended for General George B. McClellan's advance on Richmond, and caused it to come to a halt.
The Second Battle of Winchester was fought between June 13 and June 15, 1863 in Frederick County and Winchester, Virginia as part of the Gettysburg Campaign during the American Civil War. As Confederate Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell moved down the Shenandoah Valley in the direction of Pennsylvania, his corps defeated the Union Army garrison commanded by Major General Robert H. Milroy, capturing Winchester and numerous Union prisoners.
The Gettysburg campaign was a military invasion of Pennsylvania by the main Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee in summer 1863. The Union won a decisive victory at Gettysburg, July 1–3, with heavy casualties on both sides. Lee managed to escape back to Virginia with most of his army. It was a turning point in the American Civil War, with Lee increasingly pushed back toward Richmond until his surrender in April 1865. After his victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia moved north for a massive raid designed to obtain desperately needed supplies, to undermine civilian morale in the North, and to encourage anti-war elements. The Union Army of the Potomac was commanded by Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker and then by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade.
The Second Battle of Kernstown was fought on July 24, 1864, at Kernstown, Virginia, outside Winchester, Virginia, as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864 in the American Civil War. The Confederate Army of the Valley under Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early soundly defeated the Union Army of West Virginia under Brig. Gen. George Crook and drove it from the Shenandoah Valley back over the Potomac River into Maryland. As a result, Early was able to launch the Confederacy's last major raid into northern Union territory, attacking the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in Maryland and West Virginia and burning Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in retaliation for the burning of civilian houses and farms earlier in the campaign.
The Valley campaigns of 1864 began as operations initiated by Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and resulting battles that took place in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the American Civil War from May to October 1864. Some military historians divide this period into three separate campaigns. This article considers them together, as these campaigns interacted and built upon each other.
The Battle of Trevilian Station was fought on June 11–12, 1864, in Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Union cavalry under Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan fought against Confederate cavalry under Maj. Gens. Wade Hampton and Fitzhugh Lee in the bloodiest and largest all-cavalry battle of the war.
Harry Ward Gilmor served as the Baltimore City Police Commissioner, head of the Baltimore City Police Department in the 1870s, but he was most noted as a daring and dashing Confederate cavalry officer during the American Civil War. Gilmor's daring raids, such as The Magnolia Station Raid through north-central Maryland in July 1864 during the third major Confederate invasion of the North gained his partisans fame as "Gilmor's Raiders".
Wilson's Raid was a cavalry operation through Alabama and Georgia in March–April 1865, late in the American Civil War. Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson led his Union Army Cavalry Corps to destroy Southern manufacturing facilities and was opposed unsuccessfully by a much smaller force under Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.
McNeill's Rangers was an independent Confederate military force commissioned under the Partisan Ranger Act (1862) by the Confederate Congress during the American Civil War. The 210 man unit was formed from Company E of the 18th Virginia Cavalry and the First Virginia Partisan Rangers. After the repeal of the Act on February 17, 1864, McNeill's Rangers was one of two partisan forces allowed to continue operation, the other being 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry. Both of these guerrilla forces operated in the western counties of Virginia and West Virginia. The Rangers were known to exercise military discipline when conducting raids. However, many Union generals considered Captain John Hanson McNeill (1815–1864) and his men to be "bushwhackers," not entitled to protection when captured, as was the case with other prisoners of war.
Ishmael Day was a supporter of the Union during the American Civil War who made a famous stand against Confederate raiders attempting to remove the Union flag outside his property. Day is remembered in poems and ballads of the Civil War era.
Heaton's Crossroads, also known as the Purcellville Wagon Raid, was an American Civil War skirmish that took place between Federal cavalry under Brig. Gen. Alfred N. Duffié and Confederate infantry under Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge on July 16, 1864, near present-day Purcellville, Virginia in Loudoun County as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. The action was tactically inconclusive.
The 2nd Maryland Cavalry Battalion, a.k.a. Gilmor's Partisan Rangers, was a Confederate unit in the American Civil War.
The Jones–Imboden Raid was a Confederate military action conducted in western Virginia in April and May 1863 during the American Civil War. The raid, led by Brig. Gens. William E. Jones and John D. Imboden, was aimed at disrupting traffic on the vital Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and reasserting Confederate authority in transmountain Virginia in an effort to derail the growing statehood movement in the region, since voters had in March approved a new Constitution and statehood only awaited Congressional and Presidential approval.
The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia began its Retreat from Gettysburg on July 4, 1863. Following General Robert E. Lee's failure to defeat the Union Army at the Battle of Gettysburg, he ordered a retreat through Maryland and over the Potomac River to relative safety in Virginia. The Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, was unable to maneuver quickly enough to launch a significant attack on the Confederates, who crossed the river on the night of July 13 into South Mountain through Cashtown in a wagon train that extended for 15–20 miles, enduring harsh weather, treacherous roads, and enemy cavalry raids. The bulk of Lee's infantry departed through Fairfield and through the Monterey Pass toward Hagerstown, Maryland. Reaching the Potomac, they found that rising waters and destroyed pontoon bridges prevented their immediate crossing. Erecting substantial defensive works, they awaited the arrival of the Union army, which had been pursuing over longer roads more to the south of Lee's route. Before Meade could perform adequate reconnaissance and attack the Confederate fortifications, Lee's army escaped across fords and a hastily rebuilt bridge.
The Wilson–Kautz Raid was a cavalry operation in south central Virginia in late June 1864, during the American Civil War. Occurring early in the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign, the raid was conducted by Union cavalry under Brigadier Generals James H. Wilson and August Kautz, who were ordered to cut railroads between Lynchburg, Virginia, and the vital Confederate rail supply center at Petersburg. While the raid had the intended effect of disrupting Confederate rail communications for several weeks, the raiding force lost much of its artillery, all of its supply train, and almost a third of the original force, mostly to Confederate capture.