Battle of Old Town (U.S. Civil War 1864 Valley Campaign)

The U.S. Civil War Battle of Old Town was an August 2, 1864 engagement wherein Union (American Civil War) forces were amassed and took high ground at then Old Town, Maryland on the Potomac River in an unsuccessful attempt to trap Brigadier John McCausland’s Confederate States Army raiders behind Union lines after their sacking and burning of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on orders of Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early.[1] McCausland’s and his element of the Army of Northern Virginia’s salvation is credited to a single, heroic, well placed artillery shot directed at perilously close range by Maryland Line (CSA) Lt. John R. McNulty from his Baltimore Light Artillery command, which was supporting Brigadier Bradley Tyler Johnson’s 1st Maryland Infantry, CSA. Lieutenant (later Major) McNulty’s shot has been called “one of the most brilliant achievements of the war.”[2]

See also

Valley Campaigns of 1864

  • “(Gen.) Johnson’s Baltimore Light Artillery was deadly that day, disabling the locomotive with its first shot and dismounting one gun with a shot through a porthole with its second. A third shot scattered the Union Infantry behind the railroad embankment and the Potomac Home Guard was forced to take shelter in the woods, leaving Stough in the blockhouse without support. After an hour and a half standoff, Johnson sent a message under a flag of truce demanding a surrender. Stough asked for and received generous terms and surrendered, his command immediately paroled with all personal equipment except weapons. ”

References
  1. E.B. & B. Long Civil War Day By Day © 1971 Garden City, NY: Double Day, unabridged republication by arrangement (reprint published by De Capo, Inc.) ISBN 0-306-80255-4 (pbk.), pp 549 and 550 (August, 1864) “August 1, Monday … McCausland’s cavalry, successful in its expedition against Chambersburg, Pa., … was now in trouble with more Federals closing in. … August 2, Tuesday Early’s cavalry under McCausland … sought to recross the Potomac after their Chambersburg raid … skirmishing at Old Town, Md., … August 3, Wednesday … McCausland had made good his escape from Maryland to West Virginia with part of Early’s command.”
  2. Scott C. Patchan Shenandoah Summer: The 1864 Valley Campaign (2009) University of Nebraska Press pp. 287-289
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