Last Confederate Bivouac on Pennsylvania Soil

On July thirty-first, eighteen sixty-four, a Confederate cavalry force under General John McCausland, including the brigade of General Bradley T. Johnson, camped on this ground after raiding and burning the town of Chambersburg, the only Northern town destroyed by Confederate forces during the entire Civil War. It was the last time Confederate soldiers would bivouac on Pennsylvania soil.

Union General William Averell's cavalry pursued Johnson's command southward into West Virginia, catching them at the Battle of Moorefield on August seventh, eighteen sixty-four. Averell's victory at Moorefield marked a turning point: Union forces established a dominance in the Shenandoah Valley they would not relinquish for the remainder of the war. This quiet hillside holds the final footprint of the Confederacy's northernmost military presence.