A personal "discourtesy" shown Jemima Cunningham , wife of McNeill Rangers founder Captain John McNeill, apparently led to one of the most daring episodes of the Civil War.
Mrs. McNeil, her daughter and 4 year old son, had been living with relatives in Chillicothe, Ohio for more than a year when, in 1862, she sought from General Benjamin Kelly a "pass" through Union army lines to visit her husband, Captain John McNeil, head of McNeill's Rangers, in Hardy County, VA. The Rangers, Confederate partisans, had been playing havoc in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland with Union army supply lines, virtually destroying the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. General Kelly not only did not grant Mrs. McNeill a "pass", he had her arrested and placed her in custody at Camp Chase in Ohio.
With the help of a friend, Mrs. McNeill escaped and made it to her husband's headquarters at Moorefield, Va. When Captain O'Neill heard what had happened to his wife, he reportedly said: "General Kelly will regret that, for I will go into Cumberland and kidnap him and carry him off."
Captain John McNeil; died before he could carry out his threat, but on the snowy evening of February 22, 1865, O'Neill's son Jesse, who had succeeded his father as head of the Rangers, led a group of 63 men (including George S. Harness, a son of John George Harness and wife, Ann McNeill) quietly and surreptitiously into Cumberland, Md., which was in control of Union army. In fact, there were several thousand Union troops in the town at that time.
The Rangers entered a hotel and roused General Kelly and General Crook from their beds and captured them, fleeing the city with the Generals.
The event of revenge astonished the North at its sheer audacity, and thrilled Southern Confederate sympathizers with its utter boldness. |