Posted by michael sweetman ''While Johnson held New Windsor,Gilmor and 20 men rode to Westminster where they occupied the town and cut the telegraph lines.From Westminster,Johnson moved to Cockeysville excerpts pp.124-125 ''The Civil War in Maryland''...Daniel Carroll Toomey incidentally the area where this happened is covered with shopping malls apartment complexes and industrial parks..most of the historic buildings are gone ...some were from the 1700's all the best...Michael Sweetman
on 7/7/2005, 11:45 am
Hello ..I saw something on your site about early's raid on washington and thought you might be interested in this...you may be familiar with it but
i thought it was interesting:
I stumbled across this because it happened in my hometown in Maryland .[I live in Texas now]
''THE JOHNSON-GILMOR RAIDS''...the ice cream raid...
'' During Jubal Early's operations against Washington July 9-13,1864...
''The calvary brigade of Bradley T.Johnson operated independently of the main confederate force.
Its mission touched the outer limits of reality and had it been successful,it would have been the most successful cavalry operation of the war''.
where he arrived on the 10th,with Gilmor's men acting as an advanced guard.After setting fire
to the bridges of the Northern Central Railroad,Gilmor was ordered to take a small force and burn
the bridge of the Philadelphia,Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad where it crossed the Gunpowder
River further downstream.Gilmor was also instructed to disrupt communications as much as possible between Baltimore and the North.
''On the 11th,Johnson went to the estate of John ''Ex Parte'' Merryman,known as the Hayfields
for lunch.Merryman had been one of the bridge burners in April of 1861.From Cockeysville,the main
Confederate force moved through Greenspring Valley to within a few miles of Baltimore City.
That night,Johnson rested his command for a few hours at the home of John N. Carroll ,called The Caves.Around midnight,Johnson received word of the expected arrival of the 6th and 19th Corps.He quickly dispatched a courier to Early with this information.''
''Breaking camp before sun up on the 12th,the Confederates rode through Owings Mills ,
just as the employees of Painters Mill were loading a boxcar with chests of ice cream for sale in Baltimore.Johnson allowed his men to help themselves to the ''frozen vittles''.A number of Rebels
were from Southwest Virginia and had never seen ice cream before.With the special enthusiasm
of hungry soldiers, they pressed every available cup ,pail and tin cup into service.Even a few hats were used,as nearly the entire brigade partook of this rarest of all treats.This may , in fact ,
have been the largest ice cream social held in either army during the Civil War''.
Harry Gilmor,''Four Years in The Saddle'',[New York:1866],p.190
SHSP,pp.218-219
George W.Booth,Personal Reminiscences of a Maryland Soldier in the War Between The States 1861-1865,[Baltimore:1898],p.124
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