WILLIAM McNEIR – RODE WITH
GENERAL J.E.B. STUART
William McNeir was born in
Annapolis, Maryland
on July 4, 1836. His son, Forest McNeir, described
his military service: “He served all four years of the Civil War as a Private
in Pelham’s Battery of [J.E.B.] Stuarts Horse
Artillery. He was at Yellow Tavern when Stuarts horse was killed on May 10,
1864, and in this engagement had two horses shot out from under him. But he
came through the battles of the Civil War, including Gettysburg, without a scratch.” McNeir was married in Washington,
D. C. on October 5, 1871 to Miss Emily Agnes Paschal, daughter of George W. Paschal
and Sarah
Ridge. The couple spent some of the
early years of their marriage in New York and
Washington, but located
at Smith Point in 1877. William McNeir taught school
in the area up until the time of his sudden death on August 8, 1879. He is buried
in a small family cemetery at Smith Point. The McNeirs
had the following children: John
Forest [who lived only one hour] ;
Forest Watie [born
1875] , who married Stella Frick; and George Paschal [born 1877], who married
Edith Hogan.
Battle of Yellow Tavern May 11, 1864
On May 8, 1864, Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan boasted that if
headquarters would stay out of his hair, he and his cavalry could whip
Confederate Gen. Jeb Stuart out of his boots. General
Grant, appreciating Sheridan's
bravery and fighting spirit, said, "Let him start right out and do
it."
The next morning, Sheridan set out with the most powerful cavalry force
the Army of the Potomac had ever mounted- more
than 10,000 troopers with 32 guns. They moved at a walk, four abreast in a
column that stretched for 13 miles. Their mission was to move behind Lee's army
(which was locked in combat with Grant at Spotsylvania Court House), disrupt his
supply line, threaten Richmond,
and strike Stuart. Sheridan
was so confident of success that he made no effort to hide his movements.
The column reached Lee's forward supply base at Beaver dam Station by
nightfall. The Confederate depot guards had set fire to their supplies before
the Union troops arrived, but the Union force found something else to destroy:
100 railroad cars and six locomotives- one fourth of Virginia Central
Railroad's rolling stock. The next morning they ripped up 10 miles of track,
pulled down telegraph wires, and freed 378 of their men who had been taken prisoner during the
Battle of the Wilderness.
Stuart, told of Sheridan's force and direction, moved with 4,500 troopers
to get between the Union column and Richmond.
Union and Confederate forces met at noon on May 11 at Yellow Tavern, an
abandoned inn six miles north of Richmond.
For three hours the two cavalry forces fought, with the outnumbered Confederate
troops stubbornly defending their position until at last the Union force
withdrew. Before they departed, however, an unhorsed Union private fired a
single shot at a large, red-bearded Confederate officer on a horse 30 feet
away. Gen. Jeb Stuart was mortally wounded and would
die the next day. Lee had lost his greatest cavalry officer.
After early service in the Shenandoah Valley, Stuart
led his regiment in the battle of 1st Bull Run
and participated in the pursuit of the routed Federals. He then directed the
army's outposts until given command of the cavalry brigade. Besides leading the
cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia's fights at the Seven Days, 2nd Bull
Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville,
Gettysburg, and the Wilderness, Stuart was also a raider. Twice he led his
command around McClellan's army, once in the Peninsula Campaign and once after
the battle of Antietam.
While these exploits were not that important militarily, they provided a boost
to the Southern morale. During the 2nd Bull Run
Campaign, he lost his famed plumed hat and cloak to pursuing Federals. In a
later Confederate raid, Stuart managed to overrun Union army commander Pope's
headquarters and capture his full uniform and orders that provided Lee with
much valuable intelligence. At the end of 1862, Stuart led a raid north of the Rappahannock
River, inflicting some 230 casualties
while losing only 27 of his own men.
At Chancellorsville
he took over command of his friend Stonewall Jackson's Corps after that officer
had been mortally wounded by his own men. Returning to the cavalry shortly
after, he commanded the Southern horsemen in the largest cavalry engagement
ever fought on the American continent, Brandy Station, on June 9, 1863.
Although the battle was a draw, the Confederates did hold the field. However,
the fight represented the rise of the Union cavalry and foreshadowed the
decline of the formerly invincible Southern mounted arm. During the
Gettysburg Campaign,
Stuart, acting under ambiguous orders, again circled the Union army, but in the
process deprived Lee of his eyes and ears while in enemy territory. Arriving
late on the second day of the battle, Stuart failed the next day to get into
the enemy's rear flank, being defeated by Generals Gregg and Custer.
During Grant's drive on Richmond in the spring
of 1864, Stuart halted Sheridan's cavalry at
Yellow Tavern on the outskirts of Richmond
on May 11. In the fight he was mortally wounded and died the next day in the
rebel capital. He is buried in Hollywood
Cemetery there. Like his
intimate friend, Stonewall Jackson, General Stuart soon became a legendary
figure, ranking as one of the great cavalry commanders of America. His
death marked the beginning of the decline of the superiority, which the
Confederate horse had enjoyed over that of the Union.
Stuart was a son-in-law of Brigadier General Philip St. George Cooke of the
Federal service; his wife's brother was Brigadier General John Rogers Cooke of
the Confederacy
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