Sabers and Pistols - Harry Gilmor 1st / 2nd Maryland Confederate Cav Civil War

Description

Sabers and Pistols
The Civil War Career of Col. Harry Gilmor, CSA
--------------
By Timothy Ackinclose
Stan Clark Military Books, 1997, FIRST EDITION
================================
Condition : Hardcover, in Fine, unused Condition
"New Old Stock" from a downsizing distributor.
239 pages, with a many period portraits and illustrations.
End papers are maps. Indexed.
============================================================
Review from History.net
The Civil War introduced more colorful and romantic figures to the military history of the United States than any other war. Some of them, such as Lee, Jackson, Custer and Stuart, have acquired such legendary status that they are instantly recognized by their last names alone. There are many others who, while they have never achieved the same stature, are quickly remembered for their dashing deeds. Still other individuals, while not recognizable as major figures of the war, have gained something approaching cult status.
Harry Gilmor, the subject of a new biography by Tim Ackinclose, falls into the last category. Although he never received the acclaim and recognition that his fellow partisan ranger John S. Mosby did, Gilmor is well-known to students of the war in and around Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. A native of Baltimore, Gilmor cast his lot with the Confederacy in early September 1861 after being imprisoned for a short time in Maryland’s Fort McHenry as a suspected Southern sympathizer.
Upon his release, the 23-year-old Gilmor joined thousands of other Marylanders who were slipping across the border into Virginia to offer their services to the South. He made his way to Charlestown, where he met and joined the command of another Shenandoah Valley legend, Turner Ashby. For nearly four years, until his capture on February 6, 1865, Gilmor roamed the valley, becoming a household name in the proces.
In 1866, Gilmor published his own account of his war years, Four Years in the Saddle. Many modern historians have discredited Gilmor’s accounts as glory-seeking at best and pure fabrication at worst. As a result, Gilmor has been largely ignored by the general public.
Until now, that is. In the first full-length biography of the partisan cavalryman, Ackinclose re-examines Gilmor’s career by drawing heavily on Four Years In the Saddle and a variety of other sources as well. Ackinclose finds that while Gilmor might have embellished a few tales, his memoir was a fairly accurate depiction of his military career. The author does a good job of making a convincing case that Gilmor’s book was no less accurate than most, and a good deal more truthful than some.
Sabres and Pistols is a well-researched, even-handed biography of one of the lesser known but most colorful characters of the war. For anyone wishing to know more about Harry Gilmor, the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley or partisan warfare in general, Sabres and Pistols is well worth a read.
More Biographical info on Harry Gilmor
is included below the shipping information
===================================
Thank you for supporting independent booksellers !
(not bulk resellers who don't know the first thing about what they are selling !)
I pride myself on knowing my stock,
accurate descriptions, and good packing !!!
The Rock Top Book Shop and Bindery
Cashtown, Pennsylvania
=====================================
Thanks for Looking !!!
----------------------------------------------------------
Postage is free
(within Continental US - others at cost)
either by media mail or priority depending upon the final sale price of the items(s).
I always include delivery confirmation, and will insure more expensive packages at my cost.
Check my other auctions for Civil War related books, documents, and ephemera.
Thank you for looking !
===============================================
From Wikipedia Entry for Harry Gilmor
====================================================
Harry Ward Gilmor (January 24, 1838 – March 4, 1883) served as the Baltimore City Police Commissioner, head of the Baltimore City Police Department in the 1870s, but he was most noted as a daring and dashing Confederate cavalry officer during the American Civil War. Gilmor's daring raids, such as The Magnolia Station Raid through north-central Maryland in July 1864 during the third major Confederate invasion of the North gained his partisans fame as "Gilmor's Raiders".
During the American Civil War, as a member of the "Baltimore County Horse Guards" under Captain Charles Carnan Ridgely, Jr.'s (of Hampton Mansion, near Towsontown), Gilmor was arrested and imprisoned in Fort McHenry following the "Pratt Street Riots" of April 19th, 1861, with the subsequent occupation of Baltimore and Fort Federal Hill by Federal troops under Gen. Benjamin F. Butler of the 6th & 8th Massachusetts state militia in May 1861. Upon his release, he traveled South and eventually rejoined the fighting serving, for a while, under General Turner Ashby. He was again captured during the Maryland Campaign and spent five months in prison. During the Gettysburg Campaign of June–July, 1863, Major Gilmor was assigned command of the First Maryland Cavalry and Second Maryland Cavalry, supporting Brig. Gen. George Steuart's infantry brigade. Gilmor was the provost marshal of the town of Gettysburg while it was occupied by the Confederates July 1–4.
The Baltimore County/Magnolia Station Raid
As part of the third major Confederate invasion of the North, this under commanding Gen. Jubal Early with several corps of troops on a mission to attack the national capital at Washington, D.C. and possibly liberate Southern prisoners-of-war at Camp Point Look-Out in southern Maryland at the confluence of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River in St. Mary's County. After the Battle of the Monocacy, along the Monocacy River on July 9, 1864, southeast of Frederick in Frederick County, Maryland, Colonel Gilmor's command, along with Frederick's Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson's Maryland Confederate infantry and cavalry, made a series of raids around Baltimore going as far east as Magnolia Station in Harford County, Maryland and Fork, Maryland. On July 10, 1864, Major Harry Gilmor of the 2nd Maryland Cavalry was given 135 men of the 1st and 2nd Maryland, and directed to cross northern Baltimore County into Harford County at Jerusalem Mill, and destroy the railroad bridge of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad at Magnolia Station, across the Gunpowder River, northeast of the city, in Harford County. In the meantime, while crossing his home county, he stopped and visited his family at the family estate "Glen Ellen", then near the former village of Warren, now beneath the surface of Loch Raven Reservoir. Early on July 11, Gilmor's advance group passed the home of Ishmael Day on Sunshine Avenue in Fork. Day, a strong Union sympathizer, had hung a large United States flag to greet Gilmor's troops. Sergeant Eugene Fields, a member of the advance guard unit, told Day to take the flag down. Day refused, so Sgt. Fields dismounted to do it himself. Day shot Fields at close range with a shotgun. Day immediately fled, hiding under an apple cider press for days until the passing troops were gone. Gilmor's men then burned Day's home and barn. Maj. Gilmor sent Sgt. Fields to Wright's Hotel (operated by W.O.B. Wright on the Harford Road), where he later died.
At about 8:40 in the morning on July 11, Gilmor's cavalrymen reached the station and proceeded to stop two northbound trains from Baltimore. After evacuating the passengers, the troopers set fire to the second train and backed it down the tracks and onto the bridge. The train burned through the draw section of the bridge and effected much damage to the area around it. Aboard the first train was a convalescing Union Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin. This raid was regarded as one of the most daring during the war by detached cavalry on either side.
Later raids
Gilmor was eventually ordered to take his command to Hardy County, West Virginia, and attack the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. There, he was captured on February 4, 1865 by Major Henry Young, chief of scouts for Major General Philip Sheridan, and was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor until July 24, 1865, three and a half months after Lee's surrender at Appomattox.