Jessie Scouts Enable the Largest Surprise Attack in the Civil War Battle of Moorefield, West Virginia

When Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to command all of the Union armies, he and his subordinate generals understood that defeating the Confederacy required coordinated and simultaneous campaigns in multiple directions. One of the important lines of effort by Union forces involved efforts against the key Shenandoah Valley in Virginia since it was used in Confederate invasions into the North, including the 1863 invasion into Pennsylvania that culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg. Forces under General Franz Sigel moved southward in the Shenandoah until he was defeated in the Battle of New Market by Confederate troops and cadets from the Virginia Military Institute and forced to retreat northward where he was relieved and replaced by David Hunter, a Virginian who remained in the Union Army.

Returning to the offensive, Hunter defeated smaller Confederate forces and captured Lexington where he ordered the burning of the Virginia Military Institute and Virginia Governor Letcher’s home, and confiscated the statue of George Washington at Washington College. Lexington was to pay a stiff price for Virginia’s secession after Hunter entered the town. Cannons had already damaged the military college as Hunter solicited opinions from his staff about burning the buildings. Only George Crook argued against the burning and his opinion was soon overruled. 

David Hunter Strother, General Hunter’s Chief of Staff and cousin, wrote about the majority opinion: “The General asked my opinion in regard to the destruction of the Institute. I told him I looked on it as a most dangerous establishment where treason was systematically taught. That I believed the States Rights conspirators had with subtlety and forethought established and encouraged the school for the express purpose of educating of the country into such opinions as would render them ready and efficient tools wherewith to overthrow the government of the country when the hour and the opportunity arrived.”[1]

was written on July 14, 1864:

“…but for all that it’s hard when the women come out on their knees, crying and praying, and the children clinging … But … it’s a good deal harder to go along a road , and right by the side of the woods, to find your own brother hanging to a tree, with his ears, his nose, and his lips cut off as I did mine last week.”[2]

The reciprocal cruelty wasn’t limited to burnings and murder of captured soldiers. Molly Walls and her sister, Victoria Hansford, reported the shooting death of a young girl who had a sweetheart in the Confederate army:

“One day she saw some cavalry coming toward the house and she went to the door as they were dressed in gray and she thought they were Rebs. The Yanks had many spies and no-counts that dressed in gray and were called ‘Jesse Scouts’…. When they came near she saw who they were and as she tried to shut the door they all shot through it. She was shot through the breast and bowels but she lived long enough to tell what happened. Nothing was ever done about it.”[3]

Hunter’s army moved on in an attempt to capture Lynchburg, but was defeated and forced to retreat into West Virginia and onward to the Ohio River while leaving the Shenandoah Valley vulnerable to the Confederates for a northward move that General Jubal Early soon was making. Open to him, the valley was an excellent area for maneuver since there was no actual opposition and by ignoring battle at Harpers Ferry, Early’s small army was soon on the outskirts of Washington and attempting to capture Fort Stevens by mid-July. Washington’s defenders were reinforced and Early withdrew along the route taken from Virginia back to Winchester where the strategic town was fortified while attacks increased on the economic base of the Confederacy, the farms of the Shenandoah Valley.

David Hunter Strother wrote about orders received from General Halleck at the War Department into his diary on Sunday, July 17:

“Received a telegram from General Halleck informing General Hunter …. He was to devastate the valleys south of the railroad [the Baltimore and Ohio] as far as possible so that crows flying over would have to carry knapsacks. This need not involve the burning of houses, dwellings. I have begged off Charles Town from being burnt for the third time….” [4]

order to Brigadier General John McCausland who had fought Hunter’s forces throughout the Lynchburg Campaign. Garnett Eskew interviewed the elderly cavalry commander in 1938 who described a dispatch he received from Early: 

 They had sent their companion to tell him to hurry, but still he did not come. Nor did he come all the long, hot July morning, and they lay in the bushes and watched the cavalrymen of McCausland and Bradley Johnson….”[8]

As McCausland withdrew toward the relative safety of Confederate territory in the year-old new state of West Virginia, Averell’s smaller Union cavalry force followed. Averell’s Jesssie Scouts were in the advance and moved slowly as they felt their way toward the larger cavalry force. McCausland and Bradley Johnson moved into positions on opposite sides of the Potomac River, put out their pickets to guard the camps, and rested — unaware that their pursuers were actually nearby to the two brigades now separated by a river. 

were his own men, he told us where the other pickets were and they thought we were the relief guard and allowed us to approach without the countersign. We then notified Averill the coast was clear and he started the charge on Gen, McCausland and Bradley Johnson. We took them by complete surprise and whipped them handsomely. We captured a large number of their men. We had orders to capture Gen. McCausland or Bradley Johnson, but didn’t get either of these officers; we got Bradley Johnson’s saddle.”[9]

A member of the Maryland Brigade, Fielder Singluff, explained the condition of the pickets on the road responsible for guarding the resting Confederate brigades:

“When we camped in the little valley, a detail was called on for picket duty. That duty fell to the lot of Lieut. G. Bonn, of my company … He went out on a picket post with about ten men, some three or four miles from our camp. This was the only guard between Averell and our sleeping men, it must be remembered, that when this little band went out on the outpost they were worn out with the fatigues of nearly incessant marching for the four or five previous days and nights. So wearied were the men that after the first night’s duty, Lieutenant Bonn sent word to camp and begged to be relieved, stating that his men were absolutely unfit for duty.”[10]

One of Averell’s regimental histories provided additional details:

“About 2:30 a.m. of the 7th of August the rebel pickets were encountered. ‘Halt!’ was the command that came from the Johnnies accompanied by the usual ‘Who comes there?’ Our daring scouts promptly responded ‘Friends.’ ‘Advance one and give the countersign.’ Two men were on this outpost, and instead of one only, two of our men approached and told the pickets that they were a scouting party of McCausland’s command, and had gone out of camp in the afternoon by another road and did not have the countersign. After asking a few questions to which the scouts gave ready answers, the Johnnies seemed to be satisfied. While this parlay was going on our heroes had dismounted, tightened their saddle girths, and, acting in a careless manner, walked up to the pickets. At a given signal, they each seized a bridal rein, and with cocked pistols took the two outposts prisoners. From them it was learned that the picket post was half a mile distant, and that there were seven men there. These men were found asleep, the sentinel sitting on a low fence. He, like the others, was awakened to find pistols in their faces. The reserve picket of fifty men was also captured, and thus the way to the rebel camp was clear. It was just three miles distant.”[11]

Major Harry Gilmor was with the Maryland brigade and was sleeping as the Jessie Scouts entered Bradley Johnson’s perimeter, probably appearing to be Lieutenant Bonn’s returning pickets. The sudden gunfire added to the confusion within the Marylander’s camp:

rank he might have fooled me, but when he said captain, I told him he was a lying scoundrel and fired two shots before he fell. I knew these men must be Jessie Scouts.

“While this affair was going on, many of my men had mounted and came to me, for I too had mounted after killing the first man. The day was just dawning, and we could see that a large number of the enemy were upon us. We made a charge and drove them back, but then discovered that two squadrons had got round us on the west, while a whole regiment was making its way through the flats on the other side. By this time we were near the1st Maryland camp, and heard the poor fellows call out to each other ‘Stand firm, men, stand firm.’ And I saw the enemy riding them down, slashing left and right with their sabres, some crying ‘Surrender, you house-burning scoundrels!’ Others ‘Kill every damned one of them.’

“I was just ordering my men to dismount and pull down the fence, when my attention was directed to the enemy’s getting into our rear. There was nothing left us but to cut our way through to Johnson’s headquarters, and it was in doing so that we lost so many. One of my men, Lieutenant Richardson, dismounted, gave the general his horse, and was himself captured.”[12]

pugnacious Jubal Early who was operating with impunity in the vicinity of Washington during an election year. Any additional attacks on Washington might impact the presidential election and lead to the defeat of President Lincoln and a victory for the peace candidate, George McClellan. The equally aggressive Philip Sheridan was soon leading Union forces opposing Early.

[1] Strother, David H., A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War, pp. 254–255.

[2] Curry, Roy, “The Newspaper Press and the Civil War in West Virginia”, West Virginia History, Vol. VI, №3, April 11945, pg. 235.

[3] Walls, Mollie H., and Hansford, Victoria; Civil War Memoirs of Two Rebel Sisters, edited by William D. Wintz, Pictorial Histories, Charleston, WV, 1989, pg. 31.

[4] Strother, pg, 280.

[5] Ibid, pg. 280.

[6] Ibid, pg. 281.

[7] Eskew, Garnett L., “They Called Him Town-Burner,” The West Virginia Review, Vol. 16, №2, November 1938, pg. 42.

[8] Beymer, William G., On Hazardous Service, Harper and Brothers, New York: 1912, pg.11.

[9] Rowand , Arch, Correspondence with William Beymer of Harpers in 1912.

[10] Slingluff, Fielder C., “The Burning of Chambersburg,” Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXXXII, 1909, pg. 161.