Death of Two Generals - Fox's Gap, MD
Posted by: S5280ft
N 39° 28.238 W 077° 37.042
18S E 274851 N 4372275
Hidden away at where the Appalachian trail crosses Reno Monument Road, there are monuments here for two Generals, one Union, one Confederate who fell on the same day.
Waymark Code: WM45CX
Location: Maryland, United States
Date Posted: 07/09/2008
Views: 64
From the informational sign on-site:
The Civil War fight for Fox’s Gap on September 14, 1862, claimed the lives of two generals, one from each side. Confederate General Samuel Garland, a Lynchburg, Virginia Native, attended the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington and later obtained his law degree. Married in 1856, he suffered tragedy early in the war when both his wife and four-year-old son died in an influenza epidemic. Grief-stricken, he left Lynchburg as captain of the Lynchburg Home Guard, excelled during the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days’ Battles, and soon attained a general’s rank. Charged with defending Fox’s Gap, he fell mortally wounded by a bullet through his chest while rallying his men about ¾ of a mile south of here.
As evening fell and the Confederates fell back through the gap and off to the north, Union General Jesse L. Reno rode by here and into the field across from Wise’s cabin to investigate what he believed was a delay in the push for Turner’s Gap. Just then, General John Bell Hood’s Texans arrived on the field and fired the final Confederate volley, mortally wounding Reno. Carried on a stretcher to his friend General Samuel D. Sturgis’s headquarters, Reno called to him, “Hallo, Sam, I’m dead!” A few minutes later he died, the first Union Corps commander killed during the war. His monument is the second oldest one erected for the Maryland Campaign.