Just south of Mount Jackson, Virginia stands this marker. In the distance you can see the present-day bridge over the North Fork of the Shenandoah.
McNeill's Last Charge
In the predawn darkness of 3 Oct. 1864, Capt. John Hanson McNeill led thirty of his Partisan Rangers, including local resident Joseph I. Triplett, against a hundred-man detachment of the 8th Ohio Cavalry Regiment that was guarding the Meems Bottom bridge on the Valley Turnpike. The attack ended in fifteen minutes with most of the guard captured and McNeill, among the best-known Confederate partisan commanders, mortally wounded. Taken first to the Rev. Anders R. Rude’s house a mile south, McNeill was moved on 20 Oct. to Hill’s Hotel (Stoneleigh) in Harrisonburg, where he died on 10 Nov. His body was later reinterred in Moorefield, W. Va., his home.
I've been researching McNeill lately as a follow-up to a field trip in May which covered the exploits of "McNeill's Rangers" in West Virginia and Maryland.
See all my McNeill posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment
The View from Squirrel Ridge features thousands of views of the Shenandoah Valley and surrounding area. I post frequently so please visit often.
Your comments are appreciated. If you are responding to a post older than a few days, your comment will be held until we have a chance to approve it. Thanks for your patience!
Sorry, anonymous comments cannot be accepted because of the large number of spam comments that come in that way. Also, links that are ads will be deleted.