Tag: John McCausland

August 7, 1864: Battle of Moorefield Fought in Hardy County

On August 7, 1864, the Battle of Moorefield was fought in Hardy County. The Civil War skirmish occurred shortly after Confederate General John McCausland’s cavalry had burned the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, in retaliation for a similar Union raid on Lexington, Virginia. The evening before the clash at Moorefield, McCausland and General Bradley Johnson had camped at nearby Old Fields. They ignored warnings from McNeill’s Rangers—a local Confederate guerrilla group—that their position had been exposed.

At dawn on August 7, Union troops under General William Averell moved south from Keyser along the path of today’s Route 220. Averell’s forces overran the Confederates, capturing 500 men and 400 horses. Confederate General Jubal Early—the overall commander above McCausland and Johnson—wrote that the battle had a, quote, “very damaging effect upon my cavalry for the rest of the campaign.” Moorefield was part of a long summer of defeats that would push the Confederates from the Shenandoah Valley and help ensure President Lincoln’s reelection.

Three months later, in November 1864, another minor skirmish occurred near Moorefield—this one going in the Confederates’ favor.

January 22, 1927: Confederate General John McCausland Died

Confederate Brigadier General John McCausland died at his Mason County home on January 22, 1927. He was 90 years old and the next-to-the-last living Confederate general. He was survived by a little more than a year by Felix Robertson.

McCausland had grown up at Henderson, near Point Pleasant. In 1857, he graduated first in his class at the Virginia Military Institute and returned a year later to teach mathematics.

When Virginia seceded from the Union at the beginning of the Civil War, McCausland organized the 36th Virginia Infantry. However, he is best remembered for one act. In July 1864, he ordered his cavalry to burn the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, after its citizens refused to pay $100,000 in gold. The destruction of Chambersburg was in retaliation for Union General David Hunter’s devastating raid on the Shenandoah Valley.

After the war, McCausland fled the country to avoid prosecution for burning Chambersburg. He returned in 1867 and bought his farm in Mason County, where he lived the rest of his life as an unrepentant rebel. He was officially pardoned by President Ulysses S. Grant.

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