The Independent Loudoun Rangers
Serving the Union
The Independent Loudoun Rangers consisted of two small cavalry companies recruited by Waterford miller Samuel Means from Lovettsville's and Waterford's Unionists. Mustered into Federal service starting June 20, 1862, the Rangers were the only organized body of Union troops raised in Confederate Virginia. The Rangers totaled fewer than 200 men who operated in small groups as "border police" along the Potomac River, intercepting war material smuggled southward and protecting pro-Union residents.
On August 27, 1862, 50 troopers of Confederate Lt. Col. Elijah V. White's 35th Battalion Virginia Cavalry, the "Comanches," trapped 25 of Lt. Luther Slater's Rangers in Waterford Baptist Church. Losing nearly a dozen killed and wounded, the Rangers fought until their ammunition was nearly exhausted, then surrendered. Slater was among the wounded. Five days later, other Rangers captured several of White's men near Hillsboro, thereby gaining a measure of revenge.
Both the Loudoun Rangers and White's Comanches were local men, sometimes from the same families. The two units clashed several times, and the Confederates generally prevailed over their Unionist friends and relatives.
Capt. Daniel Keyes of Lovettsville led the Rangers after Means resigned in 1864, and the unit later merged with the 3rd West Virginia Cavalry. On April 6, 1865, 350 of Col. John S. Mosby's partisans attacked the remaining 65 Rangers near Harpers Ferry and effectively destroyed the unit. Three days later at Appomattox Court House, the war in Virginia came to an end. Nearly 40 Rangers died in the service of the Union (half in Confederate prison camps), and about the same number were wounded.
Marker is at the intersection of Berlin Pike (County Route 287) and Broadway (County Route 673) on Berlin Pike.
Courtesy hmdb.org
