July 10-12, 1864 - Gilmor's Raid

July 9-11, 1864 

Gilmor's Raid 

AKA The Magnolia Station Raid (though that's really a sub-set of the larger raid)

Baltimore and Harford Counties, Maryland

There's a lot going on here and I'm still piecing it together, so let's consider this entry (really, all of them) a work in progress.

This could be my absolute favorite Civil War moment right here: the days the war came closest to where I live and work today. And Gilmor is a bastard of a villain just short of Lee. OK, maybe not on the same scale as Lee, but he's still an a-hole. Fittingly, though disappointingly, he becomes the Chief of Police in Baltimore after the war - and he fires on some striking railroad workers. 

There is some irony in knowing that the street named for him is in West Baltimore's Sandown-Winchester neighborhood - epicenter of the 2015 Baltimore uprising. Gilmor Homes, an undeniably notorious housing project in the same area, also bore his name. 

From Brett W. Spaulding's Last Chance for Victory:
Jubal Early's 1864 Maryland Invasion

After Monocacy, the Rebel army belatedly breaks through and seeks to threaten the Baltimore-Washington region. Gilmor's 3-day cavalry Raid is particularly memorable and hyper-local for me. It pains me to admit that Harry Gilmore and his First and Second Cavalry regiments were mostly Marylanders, and they most definitely checked in on home when Jubal Early sent them to threaten the railroads and telegraph lines. They sure did, running wild through Maryland on a non-stop blitz for three days. Their cavalries clash on July 10th in Westminster to start things off, then things really get started. After consulting multiple books, websites, and signage, here's what I've been able to piece together.

July 10
1. Westminster > Cockeysville

2. Glen Ellen (visiting the 'rents)

3. Kingsville (robbing the general store)

July 11

4. Magnolia Junction @ 430am > York Road > Towson (which means they swung wide North, to avoid Baltimore)

5. Ady's Hotel (Towson) > trap for Union cavalry @ Mr. Graddock's home between Owings Mills and Randallstown OR chasing Union cavalry down York Rd to Woodbourne Ave within the city limits. 

6. Back to Towson > Reisterstown Road > Owings Mills

July 12

7. Seven-Mile House on the Reisterstown Rd.

8. Crossing the B&O at Marriottsville 

9. Heads SW towards Rockville > changes directions to move West through Montgomery Co > rejoins Early @ Poolesville 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=2280

After starting out for Cockeysville I got conflicted reports that they went to Hunt Valley - to visit friendlies at Hayfields But no! That's a different and simultaneous raid. There are two groups of cavalry coming from Early's main force. One group under Johnson plans to head towards Point Lookout to rescue Reb prisoners of war, shortly thereafter turning back and abandoning the plan.  Those are the guys who stop in at Hayfields and who burn the Governor's mansion. 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=201632

Later...

Gilmor's Raid

Capturing Cockeysville

— Early's 1864 Attack on Washington —

In June 1864, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee sent Gen .Jubal A. Early’s corps from the Richmond battlefields to the Shenandoah Valley to counter Union Gen. David Hunter’s army. After driving Hunter into West Virginia, Early invaded Maryland to attack Washington D.C., draw Union troops from Richmond, and release Confederate prisoners held at Point Lookout. On July 9, Early ordered Gen. Bradley T. Johnson’s cavalry brigade eastward to free the prisoners. The next day, Johnson sent Maj. Harry Gilmer’s regiment to raid the Baltimore area. Union Gen. Lew Wallace delayed Early at the Battle of Monocacy on July 9. Federal reinforcements soon strengthened the capital’s defenses. Early attacked there near Fort Stevens on July 11-12 and then withdrew to the Shenandoah Valley with the Federals in pursuit. He stopped them at Cool Spring on July 17-18. Despite failing to take Washington or free prisoners, Early succeeded in diverting Federal resources.

Before the Battle of Monocacy, Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early ordered Gen. Bradley T. Johnson to lead his cavalry brigade east toward Baltimore. Johnson’s mission was to cut railroad and telegraph communications north of Baltimore, then move south to free Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout. The first part of this mission was daring; the second part was impossible.

Johnson sent 25 mounted troopers under Maj. Harry Gilmor to seize Cockeysville, where they arrived on Sunday, July 10. They set up pickets and burned the Northern Central Railway’s bridge across the Big Gunpowder Falls, located about half a mile north of here.

(So is this Gilmore's Raid or Johnson's?)

Gilmor’s small force then rode east, where the men attempted to set fire to the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad Bridge across the Gunpowder River. Johnson’s command, meanwhile, moved south to burn Maryland Governor Augustus Bradford’s house. Plans to liberate Point Lookout were abandoned, and Johnson and Gilmor soon rejoined Early’s army.

“Repeated reports confirm the presence of the enemy on York Road at Cockeysville and Towsontown. …All reports tend to the theory that a force intends to cut the Philadelphia road. The report of the destruction of the Gunpowder Bridge on the Northern Central is reliable.” — Union Gen. William H. Morris, July 10, 1864"

So there you have it: the other group of Confederate raiders under Gilmor ride on towards, above(Cockeysville), and then past Baltimore to the East. Before raiding the general store and burning railroad bridges, Gilmore checked in on home.

or what's left of it. 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=188720

Loch Raven Reservoir

Glen Ellen

Maj. Harry Gilmor's Childhood Home

— Early's 1864 Attack on Washington —

In June 1864, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee sent Gen. Jubal A. Early’s corps from the Richmond battlefields to the Shenandoah Valley to counter Union Gen. David Hunter’s army. After driving Hunter into West Virginia, Early invaded Maryland to attack Washington D.C., draw Union troops from Richmond, and release Confederate prisoners held at Point Lookout. On July 9, Early ordered Gen. Bradley T. Johnson’s cavalry brigade eastward to free the prisoners. The next day, Johnson sent Maj. Harry Gilmor’s regiment to raid the Baltimore area. Union Gen. Lew Wallace delayed Early at the Battle of Monocacy on Jul 9. Federal reinforcements soon strengthened the capital’s defenses. Early attacked there near Fort Stevens on July 11-12 and then withdrew to the Shenandoah Valley with the Federals in pursuit. He stopped them at Cool Spring on July 17-18. Despite failing to take Washington or free prisoners, Early succeeded in diverting Federal resources.

On July 10, 1864, Confederate Maj. Harry W. Gilmor (1838-1883) surprised his parents with a brief visit to Gen Ellen, his boyhood home which stood in the Dulaney Valley just southwest of here. Gilmor stopped by his old home while he was raiding Baltimore and Harford counties as part of Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early’s Maryland invasion to threaten Washington.

Early had detached Gen. Bradley T. Johnson’s brigade, which included Gilmor’s command—the 2nd Maryland Cavalry Battalion—and Johnson had sent Gilmore to the Baltimore area to cut communications and transportation lines.

The house, which resembled a castle, was a tribute to Gilmor’s Scottish ancestors, who had immigrated to Maryland in 1769. Gilmor’s father, Robert Gilmor III, visited Scotland as a young man and stayed at Abbotsford, the estate of famed novelist Sir Walter Scott. When Gilmor returned to Maryland, he engaged architect Andrew Jackson Davis to design a dwelling (ca. 1832) modeled on Abbotsford. He named his property Glen Ellen after his wife, Ellen Ward Gilmor, with whom he had nine sons and two daughters.

The main house, The Castle, contained a circular ballroom with large bay windows, as well as numerous bedrooms and an extensive library. Ornate moldings and elaborate woodwork graced the house throughout. It remained in the family until 1883, when the construction of Loch Raven Reservoir ultimately rendered it uninhabitable. Parts were removed, and the remainder fell into ruin. If still intact, the estate 

would extend today from the lower dam on the Gunpowder River to the eastern edge of the Pine Ridge golf course."

The raiding party continued into Harford County, Maryland, clashing perhaps most notably here at the railroad crossing in what is now Mariner Point Park in Joppatowne, MD. 

They didn't go into Baltimore city proper because there were plenty of troops and barricades set-up to stop them. There was considerable action to be had in town too: a "colored regiment" among others on Federal Hill and a prison/hospital set up in Fort McHenry, along with another field hospital at what is now Patterson Park. Yes, Maryland was technically a slave state, but almost all those assholes were on the Eastern Shore; the state was also home to the largest population of freed blacks in the country. A great deal of those folks lived in and around Baltimore city at the outbreak of the war. In his biography, Gilmor boasted that he could have taken Baltimore but chose not to. I doubt that. "Johnson's raid", another offshoot from Early's army, did burn the Governor's mansion on the outskirts, in an act of purely petty revenge, but neither his men nor Gilmor's dared to come closer.

But Harford County and Northern Baltimore County saw the action in what is sometimes known as The Magnolia Station Train Raid. It does sound exciting...!  

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=176413

"On July 6, 1864, Confederate cavalrymen crossed the Potomac River into Maryland as part of a 12,000 man force under Gen. Jubal A. Early, who planned to attack lightly defended Washington, D.C., and draw off part of the Union army menacing Richmond and Petersburg. Union Gen. Lew Wallace's force, however, delayed Early at the Monocacy River on July 9. Early ordered Gen. Bradley T. Johnson's cavalry brigade to cut off Baltimore and Washington from the north, then to free 14,000 Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout, Maryland.

After destroying the Northern Central Railroad bridge in Cockeysville, Johnson detached Maj. Harry Gilmor with 135 troopers to destroy the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad drawbridge over the Gunpowder River near Magnolia Station and Joppa. Gilmor arrived at the station at 8:30 A.M. on July 11 and captured the stopped northbound train from Baltimore. The engineer disabled the controls and fled. Unable to operate the train, Gilmor burned it.

The next train arrived an hour later and fell into Gilmor's hands along with Union Gen. William B. Franklin. Gilmor detrained the passengers, set the train on fire and backed it onto the Gunpowder River bridge. Although the Union gunboat Juanita and detachments from Co. F, 159th Ohio National Guard, and the Delaware Volunteers were guarding the bridge, they could not stop Gilmor. As the flames from the burning train engulfed the bridge, the Federal soldiers leaped into the river. A few soldiers uncoupled two cars and rolled them to safety, but soon the draw span collapsed and several cars plunged into the water."

I found it- the spot on the Civil War Trails in Mariner Point Park marking where Gilmor burned the railroad cars, captured a Union officer from the train, and eventually took down the railroad bridge here over the Gunpowder River. Apparently, according to Gilmor's own biography, his plan was to set the whole train on fire and then send it North, burning bridges along the way, but the engineer sabotaged it so only the one bridge burned. The raiders stopped at Ady's Hotel near Towson on their way back West; that is now the site of Recher Theatre, where the blog author's band played, oddly enough. Cavalry from Baltimore try to run them out but are themselves turned back by Gilmore's guys. According to this 1883 obituary from The Baltimore Sun, via the Maryland Sons of Confederate Veterans (who, in their defense, "condemn in the strongest possible way the words, actions, and ideas of racists groups"), "Gilmore late claimed that if his men had not been so tired, he would have gone into Baltimore and captured the city." They had been running wild for three days and nights, falling asleep in their saddles. They even let their prisoner escape! travelling back through Green Spring Valley, they-along with Johnson's raiders-- then rejoin Early retreating across the Potomac after failing to take D.C.  

According to genealogical compiler Kevil Sholder: During the Civil War, Towson was the scene of two minor engagements. Many of Towson's citizens were sympathetic to the southern cause and to the extent that Ady's Hotel, later the Towson Hotel and the current site of the Recher Theatre, flew a southern flag. The Union Army found it necessary to overtake the town by force on June 2, 1861. During the raid, the Union army seized weapons from citizens at Ady's Hotel. A local paper, in jest, referred to Towson as the “strongly fortified and almost impregnable city of Towsontown” and downplays the need for the attack, stating, “the distinguished Straw, with only two hundred and fifty men, has taken a whole city and nearly frightened two old women out of their wits.” The second engagement took place around July 12, 1864 between Union and Confederate forces. On July 10, 1864, a 135-man Confederate cavalry detachment attacked the Northern Central Railway in nearby Cockeysville, under orders from Gen. Bradley T. Johnson. The First and Second Maryland Cavalry, led by Baltimore County native and pre-war member of the Towson Horse Guards, Maj. Harry W. Gilmor, attacked strategic targets throughout Baltimore County and Harford County, including cutting telegraph wires along Harford Road, capturing two trains and a Union General, and destroying a railroad bridge in Joppa, Maryland. Following what became known as Gilmor's Raid, the cavalry encamped in Towson overnight at Ady's Hotel where his men rested and Gilmor met with friends. The next day, a large federal cavalry unit was dispatched from Baltimore to overtake Gilmor's forces. Though outnumbered by more than two to one, the Confederate cavalry attacked the federal unit, breaking the federal unit and chasing them down York Road to around current day Woodbourne Avenue within Baltimore City limits. Gilmor's forces traveled south along York Road as far south as Govans, before heading west to rejoin Gen. Johnson's main force. Following the war, Gilmor served as the Baltimore City Police Commissioner in the 1870s."

I've never seen any other mention of them getting all the way down to Woodbourne Ave., well best the Governor's mansion. That's 2.5 miles from my house. The Towson action, especially the earlier one in 1861, requires additional investigation! 

Modern railroad bridge over the Gunpowder, and ruins. 

It does not sound like Ady's Hotel is the same thing as the Towson Tavern (to say nothing of the Bosley Hotel), but the stories seem to locate them at the same spot. Color me confused. Leave a comment or wait for me to update if you know what's up.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=249414

As a crossroads center and later as a courthouse town, Towson has been a gathering spot for over 200 years. During that time there have been several inns and hotels in the town, and for most of that long period there was a tavern and hotel on this particular spot. A stone building known as the "Towson Hotel" stood on this site until 1929, and it is believed to have contained a much older structure built by the Towson brothers in the 1760s. A 1768 court document mentions that Ezekial Towson's stone tavern was "an inn well-prepared to serve travelers." The success of that tavern grew in 1799, when York Road became a major turnpike for travelers from Pennsylvania to Baltimore.

That tavern is survived only by a few photographs. However, the boundaries of its original large lot remain to give this block its unusual shape.

[Caption:]

Both the Towson Tavern and the Bosley Hotel can be seen behind the old firehouse. The event is the 1910 Fourth of July Parade sponsored by the volunteer fire company. This tradition continues today sponsored by the Towson Chamber of Commerce. Photo by E.T. Kenney 1910.

Train Burning at Magnolia Station
Leslies's Illustrated Newspaper (1864)

"Destruction of the Bridge Over Gunpowder Creek,"

Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial History of the Civil War (1866)

This fairly obscure historical website features an incredible amount of information about Gilmor's raid taken from a diary and local newspapers. One of the most salacious tidbits, that Gilmor's MD cavalry were actually convicts and other undesirables rejected by Virginia, is delivered in an uncredited footnote that also claims Union troops were treated with "much disdain" in the state (LOfuckinL); this despite also including the fact that the Union Gen. Franklin that was on the burning train-car and captured, actually escapes his captors and is reunited with a commanding officer in Baltimore thanks to the help of loyal local citizens outside Baltimore (my emphasis).

And speaking of true American loyalists, why am I just now learning about Ishmael Day?! While some of Gilmor's hard-riding men camped at the intersection of Old Joppa and Mountain Roads (which I will be unable to resist visiting) others fumbled around for a farm to crash on-- and picked the wrong one. This website cover it nicely, but basically Day is like Barbara Fritchie but for real - and with a shotgun. He was a veteran of the War of 1812 who shot a Confederate that tried to take down his U.S. flag; the filthy traitors respond by burning his house and farm down, but he eventually rebuilt and had poems written about him: "The Patriot Ishmael Day" by William H. Hayward, an anonymous ballad, and even a modern fictional account! The building that was a hotel where Gilmor took his dying Confederate Sergeant still stands in the tiny town of Fork, MD. Day became an inspector of customs in Baltimore, lived a long life, and was buried in Fork.   

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=1927

Current site of Ishmael's home

  

The Gunpowder River 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=1253

Colonial Quaker stuff that hardly matters to the Civil War- the village was there, so it got robbed. Here's the actual Mill at Jerusalem Mills, and I think the "s" is because there  were two different wheel stones. 

Obligatory colonial blacksmith shop.

The General Store that Gillmor robbed blind. He took the food, clothing, and horses.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=210773

"Both Johnson's and Gilmor's cavalrymen were attempting to cause confusion that would help attract attention and troops away from Gen. Jubal Early's march on Washington, D.C. Though the troopers did cause destruction and "great excitement" in eastern Maryland, they ultimately failed to help free any prisoners, Early capture the U.S. Capitol, or cause enough concern to weaken the Union siege at Petersburg, Va."

Semi-recent arson burned a barn in the area, but the stone structure remains. This is near where you park if you're going to see the jousting they have nearby; it is Maryland's state sport. 

Kind of strange that across from the general store are these oldy time houses - and they are just private residences in this colonial village. There's also one of the last operational covered bridges in Maryland, and it is a doozy. Thank you Mr. Gilmor for not burning it down. 

BONUS: Hampton Nation Historic Site 

This is Hampton - and (almost) nothing happened here. In fact, I was told it is one of the only sites that the National Park services runs on a site where nothing happened historically; it is preserved for the impressive building, which seven consecutive generations of the Ridgelys lived in. One can trace, for example, the technology moving from candles, to gas, to eventually electricity. I learned that John and Eliza Ridgley's son Charles Ridgeley was elected captain of the Baltimore County Horse Guard, a "local defense cavalry." (There was a bunch of horse stuff at Hampton as throughout Maryland.) However, these people were slavers - their massive grounds and mansion were paid for by slave-labor making munitions in Revolutionary and War of 1812 eras; there's a cannonball fired at Fort McHenry on their porch. So, I don't know which locals there were going to defend with those horses because slaver Charles was a Southern sympathizer, something relatively rare in the business community of Baltimore. So, according to the Hampton pamphlet, "the guard was disbanded and Charles sat out the war." Although the pamphlets goes on to say that Hampton was physically untouched by the war (though obviously the slaves went away and the area became a dairy farm), I had a question: Did Gilmore's raid pass by here for supplies? A park ranger was able to confirm that there was no real action here, but apparently Charles was held in the home under house arrest because of unnamed treasons, and there are also some stories of the homestead being searched for supplies. Whether that was Gilmore visiting some friendlies or the Feds checking-in on Charles was unclear. But this giant Georgian mansion sits feet away from the Baltimore Beltway we drive on daily, but is fully obscured by a large highway wall. They didn't let us go up in the copula, by the way, but the furnishings inside were pretty cool: almost all original to the home (there was a sofa worth $1 million), but since it held so many generations each room in the mansion is displayed as if from a different historical era - and when we went it was done-up for Christmas, but still relatively low-key for what was once the largest private home south of the Mason-Dixon.  

As an added bonus, here are a few pics from the East Towson neighborhood that freed slaves from Hampton founded a few miles away.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=226617

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=226653

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=226687

------------

I am eternally grateful to Monocacy National Battlefield Park Ranger Brett Spaulding for giving Jubal Early's invasion the full book treatment. However, I have some bones to pick:

1. Glen Ellen is not in Towson. It is in Phoenix. We might call it Dulaney Valley, but it's definitely not in town.

2. The details about the Magnolia Junction raid are awesome, but the details (or really any mention) of Gilmore's plundering at Jerusalem Mills are somehow absent. 

3. In the book the Ishmael Day incident is perhaps conflated with the Mill raid. Day's house is in Fork, not Kingsville. But David Lee's General store that got robbed by Gilmore is in Kingsville

Connecting details are scant, but I'm left to assume-based on logic and geography-that both the Ishmael Day incident and the Jerusalem Mill incident occurred before the railroad bridge attack.

Here's the sub-par response from google AI:

Harry Gilmor's Raid of 1864, also known as the Magnolia Station Train Raid, was a daring cavalry operation conducted by Major Harry W. Gilmor and 135 men from the First and Second Maryland Cavalry regiments during the American Civil War. The raid, which took place on July 9–11, 1864, was part of an overall Confederate campaign against Union railroads, launched by Lieutenant General Jubal Early during his Valley Campaigns of 1864.

Itinerary of Harry Gilmor's Raid:

1. July 9: Gilmor's raiders departed from Poolesville, Maryland, and headed northeast towards Westminster, Maryland.

2. July 10: Gilmor's forces reached Westminster and engaged in a skirmish with Union cavalry, driving them out of the town. They continued eastward towards Magnolia Station, stopping at Jerusalem Mill to capture supplies and horses.

3. July 11: Early morning, Gilmor's raiders arrived at Magnolia Station and successfully burned down the railroad bridge, disrupting the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad. They also captured two trains, one carrying Union General William Franklin, who was taken prisoner.

4. Later July 11: Gilmor's forces turned southward and rejoined Early's main army, retreating back into Virginia.

Key Stops on the Raid:

• Poolesville, Maryland (Starting point)
• Westminster, Maryland
• Jerusalem Mill, Maryland
• Magnolia Station, Maryland

The raid was a significant disruption to Union transportation and communication in the region. It also bolstered Confederate morale and served as a reminder of the ongoing war effort.

* There's a new book out in 2025 on all this, but I have not read it yet:

https://www.savasbeatie.com/copy-of-the-johnson-gilmor-cavalry-raid-around-baltimore-july-10-13-1864/

This isn't over!

Sources:

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~rdrunner/web_data/pi3776.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Gilmor

https://www.historynet.com/rebel-raiders-ring-around-baltimore/