Book Review: The Johnson-Gilmor Cavalry Raid Around Baltimore, July 10-13, 1864

The Johnson-Gilmor Cavalry Raid Around Baltimore, July 10-13, 1864. By Eric J. Wittenberg. El Dorado Hills: Savas, Beatie, 2025. Hardcover, 164 pp. $29.95.

Reviewed by John B. Sinclair

A Maryland highway historical marker stands in Towson describing the burning of Gov. Augustus W. Bradford’s home. It has become familiar to me since my youth. Soon after becoming interested in the Civil War, I found material about this event and its associated raid in articles and chapters of books.[1] I have hoped to one day find a comprehensive book on the subject, and it has now arrived. The Johnson-Gilmor Cavalry Raid Around Baltimore, July 10-13, 1864, penned by leading Civil War cavalry historian, Eric Wittenberg, it is part of Savas, Beatie’s growing Battles & Leaders Series.[2]

Jubal Early’s Army of the Valley was on its journey down the Shenandoah Valley in June 1864 to its eventual destination, Washington, D.C., when Confederate discussions occurred about a raid on the Confederate prisoner of war camp at Point Lookout, Maryland.

The plan’s origin is a bit murky. Wittenberg submits that it was Robert E. Lee’s plan based on Lee’s June 26, 1864, letter to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Other authors have not been so sure.[3]

With Petersburg besieged by Grant, the Confederacy was desperate for manpower. The Confederate prisoner-of-war camp at Point Lookout[4] in Saint Mary’s County was located at the southernmost tip of Maryland at its confluence of the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay as they merged with the Atlantic Ocean. Located across the Potomac River from Virginia, the 15,000 Confederate prisoners there (the camp was designed for 10,000) presented a tempting source of reinforcements for the Army of Northern Virginia. Could those prisoners be freed in a daring raid and brought back to join Early’s army as it threatened Washington?

The final plan had two parts. General Bradley Johnson (a Marylander), a cavalry commander in Early’s army, would lead a force of 1,500 cavalrymen north around Baltimore destroying railroad lines, bridges, and telegraph lines and make their way south to Point Lookout. Concurrently, Confederate naval raider John Taylor Wood[5] would lead two Confederate ships with 800 marines and sailors aboard[6] along with thousands of muskets to arm freed Rebel POWs. Wood planned to leave from Wilmington, North Carolina, evade the Union blockade, and make his way to the Potomac River across from Point Lookout. The Confederate land and naval forces would make a combined assault on the camp at night on July 12, 1864. Given the difficulties Civil War armies had in coordinating attacks, the likelihood of separate Confederate forces hundreds of miles apart arriving at the same moment seems far-fetched. Wittenberg states that “the plan smacked, at best, of rank desperation.” (39)

Union authorities caught wind of the operation and sent gunboats down the Potomac to Point Lookout. Wood’s naval operation was canceled. Bradley Johnson was not enthusiastic about his assignment from Jubal Early, which he received on July 8, 1864 (two days after Early received the Lee order, a delay Wittenberg believes was another factor in the mission’s failure).[7] Johnson noted that it would take 200 miles to accomplish his raiding assignment and to reach Point Lookout by July 12, a task he considered impossible. Johnson nevertheless followed orders. He proceeded forth from Monocacy through Maryland towns on July 9, causing mischief, before reaching the area north of Baltimore. He instructed Maj. Harry Gilmor, a Baltimore-area native, to lead 150 horsemen northeast of Baltimore to destroy the railroad across the Susquehanna River leading to Philadelphia while the remainder of Johnson’s forces destroyed sections of the North Central Railroad as well as rail bridges and telegraph lines.

In retaliation for Union soldiers burning the Virginia Military Institute and Virginia Governor John Letcher’s home in Lexington the previous month, Johnson dispatched a company of cavalry to burn Maryland Governor Augustus Bradford’s home.[8] Although Wittenberg believes Johnson and Gilmor moved with appropriate dispatch, he does note some amusing incidents where Confederates stopped for alcoholic beverages, ice cream, and meals, etc. with sympathetic friends and secessionists. Historian Benjamin Cooling criticizes the burning and relaxation festivities as a waste of valuable time.[9]

Baltimore was in a panic during the raid. There were few Union troops in the area as most had been ordered to Monocacy to confront Early or to the defenses of Washington. There was some minimal Union resistance to Gilmor’s mission to destroy the Susquehanna railroad bridge. A Union gunboat dispatched to protect the bridge inexplicably withdrew from Gilmor’s troopers who destroyed the bridge by driving a flaming locomotive over it.[10]

Johnson and Gilmor eventually reunited and were outside Washington on July 12 when an Early courier reached them. Early recalled Johnson as Early had tested the defenses of Washington and decided to end his incursion.

Wittenberg demonstrates lively storytelling skills with this spirited account of the Johnson-Gilmor raid. His research is comprehensive, and his analysis is insightful. It is an entertaining read for Civil War readers of all experience levels. Savas Beatie production values are again on display with a handsome volume and the best maps of the raid I have seen. There are minor errors that escaped proofreading but none that mar the narrative.

While bold and intriguing, the raid was doomed to failure. Even had the prisoners of war been freed, bringing thousands of Confederates (mostly on foot and many who were not in combat condition) past Washington would have met a bloody end when encountering the Union troop reinforcements sent by Grant to confront Early.

As many ECW readers are aware, Eric Wittenberg has been quite ill the past few years. I know I speak for many in sending best wishes for the renewal and restoration of his health.

 

[1]  Chapter 6 (“Sideshow in the Baltimore Suburbs”) of Jubal Early’s Raid on Washington: 1864, Benjamin Franklin Cooling (Baltimore: Naval & Aviation Publishing Co. of America, 1989) is the best such chapter.

[2]  The purpose of this series is explained on the publisher’s website.

[3] See Jubal Early: Robert E. Lee’s “Bad Old Man”, Benjamin Franklin Cooling (Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield, 2014) 59 (“Truthfully, this was a half-hatched scheme at senior government levels, sanctioned by Lee.”). The courier taking Lee’s dispatch to Early concerning the Point Lookout raid was Lee’s son, Captain Robert E. Lee, Jr. Jubal: The Life and Times of General Jubal A. Early, CSA, Defender of the Lost Cause, Charles C. Osborne (Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 1992) 267 (“Captain Lee said even his father knew little more than the bare outlines of the project.”); Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command, Vol. 3, Douglas Southall Freeman (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1944) 564 (“Lee’s dispatch contained the admission that the commanding General was not familiar with all the details of this adventure.”); Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour, William C. Davis (New York, HarperCollins, 1991) 574 (“[Davis even approved a scheme of his nephew Wood’s and others to make a raid on the Point Lookout, Maryland prison camp.”).

[4] The prisoner of war camp was named Camp Hoffman after Colonel William Hoffman, the Commissary of Prisoners for the U.S. Army. It was part of a military complex that included a hospital (Hammond General Hospital) intended mostly for wounded Union soldiers but with care also extended to Confederate prisoners. Wittenberg provides a good summary of this facility and cites other authors who provide a fuller treatment. A commendable recent work by a noted Civil War cartographer and his wife is Hell Comes to Southern Maryland: The Story of Point Lookout Prison and Hammond General Hospital, Bradley M. Gottfried and Linda I. Gottfried (Fairfield: Turning Point, 2018).

[5] Colonel Wood is a fascinating, swashbuckling character. He served onboard the C.S.S. Virginia during its famous engagement with the U.S.S. Monitor. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, he received Confederate commissions in the Navy as a commander and in the army as a colonel. He had been independently constructing his own plan to ferry Confederate troops across the Potomac to attack Point Lookout. For more on Wood, see John Taylor Wood: Sea Ghost of the Confederacy, Royce Gordon Shingleton (Athens, Univ. Georgia Press, 1979).

[6] To be led by R.E. Lee’s eldest son, George Washington Custis Lee.

[7] Pure speculation on my part, but perhaps Early wanted Johnson’s cavalry for scouting in connection with his operations in western Maryland and the specter of approaching Union forces at Monocacy.

[8] The property is located at the north border of Baltimore City with Baltimore County. It now consists of a country club and 18-hole golf course.

[9] Cooling, Jubal Early’s Raid, 164. Civil War historian Phillip S. Greenwalt is similarly critical in his summary of the raid in Appendix D to Determined to Stand and Fight: The Battle of Monocacy, July 9, 1864, Ryan T. Quint (Savas, Beatie, 2016), 137 (“With speed being essential to reach the Southern prisoners at Point Lookout, the laziness of Sunday afternoon was most striking.”); see also Osborne, 287 (“[A]stonishingly, Johnson and Maj Harry Gilmor…wasted much precious time visiting relatives and friends.”). Given the raid’s high likelihood of failure, any delay during the raiding may be academic.

[10] An earlier passenger train was stopped and looted by the raiders, leaving the passengers unharmed – with one exception. Union Major General William Franklin was aboard in civilian clothes, recovering from a leg wound received during the battle of Mansfield in Louisiana. He was taken prisoner but later escaped when Gilmor’s men fell asleep.

 

John B. Sinclair is a retired charitable foundation president and a retired attorney. He is a member of the Baltimore Civil War Roundtable, a member of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (James A. Garfield Camp No. 1), and a Life Member of the Lincoln Forum.