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One Man’s Outrage:
Samuel Miller and
the Day the Yankees Came
BY BARRY RUDACILLE
The Battle of Lynchburg, a brief but significant military engage- ment that occurred west of
the 1864 city limits, has been thoroughly chronicled over the years, both in print and more recently, in a very professionally crafted docu- mentary film. With the establishment of the Historic Sandusky Foundation
in 2000, a new dimension was added to the preservation of that episode of local history. Although the plight of the Hut- ter family at Sandusky is well known, their rural neighbor, less than two miles away, had his own confrontation with Union intruders.
Thursday, June 16, 1864
Weary, having been in the saddle for days, a small detachment of Confeder- ate cavalrymen and their exhausted mounts retired northeastward toward Lynchburg along the Salem Turnpike (now US 460, Timberlake Road). Their
28 LYNCH’S FERRY
mission: warn nearby residents that Federal cavalry, infantry, and artillery were not far behind. Major General David Hunter, commander of the Union Army of West Virginia, was threatening Lynchburg from the west, continuing
his campaign through the Shenandoah Valley. Only days earlier, the Virginia Military Institute had been burned. Now, Hunter’s two infantry and two cavalry divisions—18,000 strong—were at New London, some fourteen miles distant. Although vital to the logistical support
of General Lee, Lynchburg had been unscathed by three years of war. Now, the conflict was about to become a very personal event for its citizens. Hunter’s forward elements were expected to reach the city’s outskirts by the following afternoon.
Impeded only by the harassing tactics of Brigadier General John McCausland, CSA, and his considerably outnumbered 1,500-man cavalry brigade, Hunter’s
Photo by Bob Szabo, © Historic Sandusky Foundation
army was operating far beyond any source of military supply. To compensate, he had resorted to “living off the land” and wreaking havoc among local non- combatants. Food, livestock fodder, and anything of military value were comman- deered. The looting of civilian prop-
erty had become rampant, and under Hunter’s specific orders, warehouses and even some homes were put to the torch. McCausland may have bought days of precious time with his delaying action, but this would be to no avail if Lynch- burg could not be reinforced within twenty-four hours. Help was on the
way, as Lieutenant General Jubal Early’s Second Corps had been dispatched by General Lee to defend the city. However, the immediate outlook was tenuous. Having reached Charlottesville after a trek of eighty miles in just over three days, Early was desperately arranging rail transportation for the final sixty miles in order to outrace Hunter to Lynchburg.