July 19, 1864 - Capt. Martindale burns down Boteler's home; Elmwood Cemetery

July 19, 1864

Capt. Martindale burns down Boteler's home, Fountain Rock

Elmwood Cemetery

Shepherdstown, WV

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=161830

Fountain Rock

"Crows… will have to carry their provender with them"

—1864 Valley Campaign—

The Federal offensive in the Shenandoah Valley begun in May 1864 faltered in the summer with Confederate victories and Gen. Jubal A. Early's Washington Raid in July. Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan took command in August, defeated Early at Winchester in September and Cedar Creek in October, burned mills and barns, and crushed the remnants of Early's force at Waynesboro on March 2, 1865. Sheridan's victories contributed to President Abraham Lincoln's reelection in November 1864 and denied Gen. Robert E. Lee's army much-needed provisions from the "Breadbasket of the Confederacy."

In 1864, the conduct of the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley, the “Breadbasket of the Confederacy” and an avenue of invasion, underwent significant change. Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was determined to eliminate the Valley as a source of food for the Confederate Army. He ordered Gen. David Hunter, commanding the Federal army in the Valley, “to eat out Virginia clear and clean as far as they go, so that crows flying over it for the balance of this season will have to carry their provender with them.” Unfortunately for the Valley’s residents, farm fields and livestock were not the only objects of Hunter’s attention.

On July 19, 1864, Capt. Franklin Martindale and a detachment of the 1st New York Cavalry rode from Harpers Ferry to this spot. Martindale had come to burn Fountain Rock, a beautiful native limestone house built in 1834 for Dr. Henry Boteler, in partial retaliation for Gen. Jubal A. Early's burning of the Maryland governor’s house. By 1864, Fountain Rock was the home of Boteler’s son, Alexander Robinson Boteler, who served as an aide on the staff of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and also was a member of the Confederate Congress.

Boteler’s two daughters were at Fountain Rock when Martindale appeared. He ordered them to leave the house and then set the place ablaze, destroying the house as well as Boteler’s library and his valuable collection of letters that chronicled the early history of the Lower Shenandoah Valley. The only items that were saved were the leather-bound volumes of the Congressional Record.

Let's check the score:

1. Union forces burn the home of Virginia Gov. John Letcher near Lexington

2. In retaliation, Jubal Early dispatched Gen Bradley T. Johnson, who sends 12 men from Harry Gilmor's troops under Lt. Henry Backistone, to burn Maryland Governor Bradford's Mansion on Charles St. (July 11 -there's a marker).

3. In retaliation for that, a week later the Union burns down Boteler's house.

4. thank u, next

Also this...

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=108818

Useful orientation, and Elmwood Cemetery is up next...

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=193649

"In September 1862 following the Civil War Battles at South Mountain and Sharpsburg, wounded soldiers began pouring into Shepherdstown. Mary Bedinger Mitchell, 12 years old at the time, was living just outside of town at Poplar Grove, and remembered that, "The wounded continued to arrive until the town was quite unable to hold any more disabled and suffering. They filled every building and overflowed into the country round, every inch of space, and yet the cry was for more room." Eventually, many of the wounded moved on. For a few, Shepherdstown was their final resting place.

In 1867, the Southern Soldiers Memorial Association of Shepherdstown was founded "for the purpose of collecting into a burial ground the bodies of Confederate Soldiers killed during the Civil War and caring for their graves and perpetuating the memory of their heroic deeds." In 1868, the group, led by Joseph McMurran, James Madison Hendricks, William L. Arthur, John Will Taylor and John William Benjamin Frazier, purchased "a piece of land" from Jacob Line adjacent to the Methodist Cemetery to serve as the final resting place for men who were either killed

or died from wounds received during the Maryland Campaign. Initially their interments were marked with wooden headstones. The Confederate Cemetery was formally dedicated on Saturday, June 5, 1869 and transferred to the care of Elmwood by 1871. In 1884, the Southern Soldiers Memorial Association had the wooden markers replaced with marble headstones.

Today among the 171 standing headstones, there are 112 known burials for the state of Georgia (22), Virginia (20), North Carolina (19), South Carolina (12), Louisiana (6), Mississippi (6), Alabama (4), Florida (3), and Texas (3). Fifteen men are named but no state is given. The names of 59 of the men buried here are Unknown."

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=154058

"Over 114 Confederate soldiers who were killed at the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam) September 17, 1862, or later died of wounds in Shepherdstown, were buried here. They were from the states of VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS, LA and FL. Many remain unknown. That year and each one thereafter, local townspeople strew flowers on their graves. It is believed that this was the initiation of Confederate Decoration Day (October, 1862). Later, Confederate Memorial Day was observed on the first Saturday in June. The Southern Soldiers' Memorial Association placed the obelisk monument here in 1879 and the 114 headstones in 1884. The Henry Kyd Douglas Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans erected the monument and bronze tablets containing names of 568 Southern soldiers from the area (1937). The State of WV contributed $750.

A total of 281 Confederate veterans are interred here including GEN W. W. Kirkland of Hillsborough, N.C., and Shepherdstown personalities COL Henry Kyd Douglas (youngest staff officer to Stonewall Jackson. Alexander R. Boteler (both a United States and Confederate Congressman, political confidant of GEN Jackson and designer of the Seal of the Confederacy), COL Isaac S. Tanner (Chief Surgeon, Hoke's Division), COL Isaac V. Johnson, COL Wm. A. Morgan, COL Wm. Fitzhugh Lee, widow Lily Lee, and JEB Stuart's scouts; CPT Redman Burke, CPT Matthew Leopold and LT Henry Hagen."

Hey, how's your mansion, traitor?

"At the top of the hill in Elmwood Cemetery is the grave of COL Douglas, youngest staff officer to GEN Stonewall Jackson. Born in Shepherdstown in 1838 and raised at 'Ferry Hill Place' in Maryland across the Potomac River bridge, he is noted for his classic book, I Rode with Stonewall. Considered one of the best personal memoirs of the Civil War, it is a warm and insightful recollection of the human side of Lee's commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia. Douglas was an eyewitness to the significant events of the era (1859-1865). As a youth he unwittingly assisted John Brown in moving a wagonload of weapons and later attended Brown's trial in Charles Town. When Virginia seceded, he enlisted in the 2nd Virginia Infantry and later joined Jackson's staff.

He participated in all the major Eastern battles from Manassas to Appomattox, was cited several times for bravery, wounded twice and taken prisoner at Gettysburg. in 1864, he served in GEN Jubal Early's staff in the Raid on Washington and was later given command of GEN A.P. Hill's light Brigade. His soldiers were the last to stack arms at Appomattox. When the war ended, he was arrested for posing for a photo in uniform and imprisoned in Washington D.C. There he testified at the trial of the Lincoln Conspirators. In later years he practiced law and served as a circuit judge in Maryland. He died in 1903. His book was published in 1940."

As a patriotic American and Marylander, I am frankly tired of hearing about this overblown secretary.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=168732

"On Wednesday, September 17, 1862, twelve-year-old Mary Bedinger, asleep at her home Poplar Grove outside Shepherdstown, was awakened by the roar of cannons. Confederate and Union forces in position near Sharpsburg, Maryland, just across the Potomac River, were desperately trying to dislodge one another. The bloodiest day in American history had begun. Soon a seemingly endless stream of wounded men flowed into dozens of buildings in and around Shepherdstown that were pressed into service as hospitals. Unfortunately, not all of the wounded men would survive.

The Southern Soldiers’ Memorial Association of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, was organized in 1867 to acquire a burial site for Confederate soldiers who died during and after the battle. In 1868, the association purchased a lot from Jacob Line adjacent to the Methodist Cemetery. A total of 114 men, many unknown, are interred here from other initial burial sites. The cemetery was dedicated on Confederate Memorial Day, June 5, 1869, and a monument to the dead was dedicated the next year. The Confederate Soldiers regimental monument erected in 1935 by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the State of West Virginia lists the names of 535 Jefferson County men who served in the Confederate army. In addition to the men buried in the Confederate cemetery, about 125 Confederate veterans are buried in Elmwood Cemetery.

“On Thursday [September 18] . . . they continued to arrive until the town [Shepherdstown] was quite unable to hold any more disabled and suffering. They filled every building and overflowed into the country round, into farmhouses, corncribs, and cabins. . . . There were six churches, and they were all full; the Odd Fellows’ Hall, the Freemasons’, the little Town Council room, the barn-like place known as the Drill Room, all the private houses after their capacity, the shops and empty buildings, the school-houses . . . and yet the cry was for more room.” - - Mary Bedinger Mitchell"