America’s Civil War: Loudoun Rangers

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Before Colonel Dixon Miles surrendered his 12,000-man force at Harpers Ferry to Confederate Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson later that same September, some 2,000 Union horsemen fought their way to safety. Among them were the Loudoun Rangers. Means, like most officers, was outraged at the plan to surrender. He and his Rangers had special reasons to avoid capture. Since they were Virginians, they could be hanged as traitors. Means already had a price on his head courtesy of Virginia authorities. He chose to live and fight another day.

The Virginia Yankees later fought Colonel White’s men again, as well as cavalrymen under the command of Colonel John S. Mosby. The Rangers fell upon and routed an unsuspecting company of White’s cavalry at Catoctin Mountain near Morven Park on September 13, 1863, and were ambushed in turn by a detachment of Mosby’s men under Captain Dolly Richards on May 17, 1864.

The young men of the Loudoun Rangers, like their Rebel counterparts, were able to sustain fairly close relationships with the local womenfolk. Unlike the ordinary Union and Confederate troops who served far from home, the Rangers frequently saw girls they knew in the Waterford, Lovettsville and Taylorstown neighborhoods. Often they attended parties, dances, weddings and other social gatherings. The local boys in gray did likewise, and all too frequently the nicest parties were spoiled by gunfire.

On February 20, 1863, Sergeant Flemon B. Anderson’s sister Molly gave a ball at the James Filler house that was interrupted by some of White’s cavalrymen, led by a Lieutenant Marlow. When Molly begged and pleaded for the Rebels to spare her brother a trip to Libby Prison, Marlow finally agreed that Anderson would be paroled if she would dance the next set with him. Relieved, Sergeant Anderson took up the fiddle and played happily for the rest of the evening. The next morning he reported to Union headquarters at Point of Rocks and was sent to Camp Parole at Annapolis, where he stayed until properly exchanged.

Unfortunately, the party-going Anderson pushed his luck. On Christmas Eve 1864, a Ranger detachment left Maryland for a raid into their old home grounds near Waterford, knowing the Confederates were camped there. Anderson’s mother had arranged a dance at her home near Taylorstown, and the sergeant stopped by to visit. He was sitting beside his intended when White’s and Mosby’s men surrounded the house around 9 p.m. Anderson tried to escape through the back door as they came in the front, but he was shot through the head and died in his mother’s arms. The Confederates wanted to shoot captured Sergeant John Hickman as well for some alleged war crime in the past, but they desisted when one of Mosby’s men who was related to the Andersons intervened.

The Rangers should have been successful in thwarting the Confederate partisans who preyed on communications and rear-echelon troops. The fact that they were not can be attributed to at least four identifiable factors.

First was a lack of formal training. The Rangers received no military training from the Union Army. Charles A. Webster, who was mustered in on June 20, 1862, did his best to teach the men how to drill. Webster, who apparently had prior military training, became the unit’s drillmaster even before he was promoted to sergeant. He earned the Rangers’ undying gratitude for turning them into an efficient military unit with a working knowledge of cavalry drill, discipline and fighting techniques.

Webster was a terrific shot and a skilled hand with a saber, but he was quite reticent about discussing his past. It turned out that Webster was not really his name. He was Charles Brown from New Hampshire, and he was recognized by some Maine troops when they were camping nearby after the Battle of Antietam. He had taken the name Webster because his mother was distantly related to Daniel Webster and because his father, who had become a Californian in the 1849 Gold Rush, was a notorious Copperhead (anti-war Democrat). He never revealed where he had received his earlier military training.

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Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures

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