Commands: The Quaker-dominated Loudoun Rangers openly defied Virginia tradition to serve the Union. - January ‘98 America’s Civil War Feature

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The Quaker-dominated Loudoun Rangers openly defied Virginia tradition to serve the Union.

By Richard E. Crouch

Of all the special units that were formed to combat Confederate partisan rangers in Virginia during the Civil War–the Blazer Scouts, the Jesse Scouts, Cole’s Maryland Cavalry and others–probably the most promising was the Loudoun Rangers, an independent cavalry unit drawn from the largely Quaker and German farming communities of northern Loudoun County, Virginia.

Despite the pacifist beliefs of their church, many of Loudoun County’s Quakers took up arms on each side. The Loudoun Rangers’ founder and commander was Captain Samuel C. Means, himself a Quaker and the owner of a large grist mill in Waterford. Means also owned a substantial mercantile business in Point of Rocks, Md. Forced by vigorous Confederate persecution to take refuge in Maryland, Means was summoned to Washington and offered a commission to raise a cavalry company of disaffected refugee Virginians. He quickly raised two companies, which were mustered into Federal service on June 20, 1862.

Loudoun County was swarming with Confederates. It was the Loudoun Rangers’ job to make periodic raids to harass and capture them. To do so, the Rangers established camps on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. From there they made constant forays into Loudoun, Clarke and Jefferson counties.

Often the Rangers were merged into other commands and sent off to accompany the main army, fighting in such major battles as Fisher’s Hill, Cedar Creek and Monocacy, as well as in other engagements even farther from their native county. In fact, for Means’ men, the whole war was a constant struggle to maintain their unit’s independence.

There was a curious parallel between the Loudoun Rangers and their archenemies, Lt. Col. Elijah V. “Lige” White’s 35th Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, also known as “White’s Comanches.” The first two companies were raised in exactly the same area of Loudoun County, and the same surnames appear in both the blue and the gray ranks. As the two groups clashed again and again, their special brand of warfare took on the nature of local family feuds.

The relationship between the two bands was especially antagonistic. Soldiers knew individual members of the opposing unit, exactly where they lived, their sweethearts and other loved ones. Like the Loudoun Rangers, the 35th Virginia had been raised for the specific purpose of “ranging in the border counties,” and the men never resigned themselves to being forced to follow the main army into distant regions in violation of their special enlistment contract.

White’s Comanches returned to Loudoun County as an entire unit only a few times during the war, but its smaller units and individuals of the regiment were constantly turning up there. Convalescent troopers were all too eager to rejoin the fight, and officers and men frequently went back home to recruit, forage or procure a new mount. At the beginning of the war, it was Means and other Loudoun Rangers who had to sneak back into Loudoun County to visit their homes; later in the war, the Confederates had to do so.

When General Robert E. Lee’s army moved north as part of the Antietam campaign, White’s Comanches were suddenly back in force in Loudoun County. The Rangers were sleeping in the Waterford Baptist Church when they were attacked by White’s men after midnight on August 27, 1862. Surrounded, the Rangers defended their position in the brick church until almost every man was wounded and ammunition was running low. When they surrendered, it was to relatives and to boys with whom they had gone to school. One of White’s men, William Snoots, loudly insisted on the right to kill his prisoner, and it took several of his fellow Confederates to force him to accept the rules of civilized warfare. The prisoner was Loudoun Ranger Charles Snoots, his brother.

On September 1, the Rangers hit nearby Hillsboro, driving off some of White’s cavalrymen and capturing two of them. Another clash the next day was much larger and much less successful. This time it was near Leesburg, a hotbed of Southern sympathizers, and the Rangers’ opponents were members of the 2nd Virginia Cavalry. These hardened Confederate veterans bested them in a pitched battle about a mile north of town. Coupled with the Waterford debacle, the costly defeat at Leesburg was very discouraging to recruiting efforts and probably kept the Rangers from raising enough men to make a full battalion.

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