Qualla: Battle of Loudoun Heights

Battle of Loudoun Heights: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It is three in the morning on January 10, 1864, and a hundred horsemen are creeping up a mountain in the snow. Their objective is the camp of Cole's Maryland Cavalry, perched on the Virginia side of the Potomac across from Harpers Ferry. The temperature has been below freezing for days. The men have been riding since the previous evening. They have crossed a snowy plateau, ridden along the Potomac riverbank, and dismounted to climb the steep western face of Loudoun Heights on foot. They are within 200 yards of the Union camp now. John Singleton Mosby is about to launch one of his most ambitious raids, and within minutes it will go wrong in almost every way that an attack in the dark can go wrong. By dawn, Mosby's Rangers will have lost more men in a single fight than they have ever lost before - and the regiment they tried to surprise will have its commander promoted by the end of the month.

Battle of Loudoun Heights: Why Mosby Came

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Cole's Cavalry had committed an insult that Mosby could not let stand. On January 1, eighty of Major Henry Cole's Maryland troopers had ridden deep into the country around Upperville and Rectortown - the heart of what the locals called Mosby's Confederacy - looking for partisan R...

Battle of Loudoun Heights: A March in the Snow

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On January 9, a hundred Rangers gathered at Upperville and rode north through deep snow toward Hillsboro. They reached Woodgrove around eight in the evening and stopped at the home of Ranger Henry Heaton long enough to rest the horses and warm the men. Just north of Hillsboro the...

Battle of Loudoun Heights: Friendly Fire

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

What happened next was a textbook lesson in why night attacks usually fail. Gunfire crackled from the direction of Stringfellow's position. A group of horsemen appeared, riding toward Mosby from the camp. In the darkness Mosby took them for Federal cavalry that had discovered Str...

Battle of Loudoun Heights: After the Snow Cleared

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The fight lasted forty-five minutes. When Mosby heard the sound of Federal infantry marching up from Harpers Ferry, he ordered a general withdrawal. The Rangers carried away six prisoners - pickets taken from a post on the Hillsboro road at Piney Run - and nearly sixty horses. Th...