Turner Ashby

Turner Ashby Jr. (October 23, 1828 – June 6, 1862) was a Confederate cavalry commander in the American Civil War.

In his youth, he organized an informal cavalry company known as the Mountain Rangers, which became part of the 7th Virginia Cavalry ("Ashby's Cavalry"). On the outbreak of the Civil War, Ashby and his troopers were assigned to the Virginia Militia command of Colonel Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Although Jackson's Valley campaign owed much to Ashby's reconnaissance and screening, Ashby was criticized by Jackson for the lax training and discipline of his men. By the time Ashby was killed, leading his men at the Battle of Good's Farm near Harrisonburg, he had received his general’s star. However, Ashby's official rank is contested as the promotion was not confirmed until after his death.

Turner Ashby Jr. was born at Rose Bank Plantation near Markham in Fauquier County, Virginia, to Turner Ashby Sr. and Dorothea Green Ashby. As a child he often played in the waters of nearby Goose Creek, and had a pet wolf named "Lupus" that neighbors demanded he get rid of. His father died when he was young, so his mother hired a tutor for Turner and his brother, then sent him to Major Ambler's school nearby, but Ashby preferred wandering the countryside rather than classes. In later years, he bought a residence near his childhood home and named it Wolfe's Crag. An accomplished horseman at an early age, Ashby often participated in tournaments, and won many, including once dressed as an Indian chief and riding with neither bridle nor saddle.

With a partner, Ashby ran a mill on his father's property until his mother sold it to neighbor Edward Carrington Marshall of the Manassas Gap Railroad. Ashby enjoyed modest success at both business and farming.

Knowing that his father had fought as a colonel in the War of 1812, and his grandfather Jack Ashby served as a captain during the American Revolutionary War, Ashby while in his 20s organized a cavalry company of his friends that became known as the "Mountain Rangers," initially to keep order among laborers on the Manassas Gap Railroad, some of whom tended to get into drunken brawls. Among the Rangers were E.C. Marshall's nephews Thomas Marshall, James Jones Marshall and Lewis Fielding Marshall (all grandsons of Chief Justice John Marshall, who mostly resided in Richmond, Virginia or Washington, D.C., but spent the summers at his Oak Hill plantation in Fauquier County run by his son and later this grandson Thomas Marshall, also a member of the Rangers and who would die in battle in late 1864). Upon learning of John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, the Mountain Rangers met at Harper's Ferry, where some performed guard duty at Charles Town during Brown's trial and execution and the unit was formally absorbed into the Virginia Militia. Ashby later told his friend Major Lewis A. Armistead that the Civil War really began with John Brown's insurrection, and that those behind Brown would keep on until they forced the South to secede.

Ashby avidly followed politics and ran for the state legislature, but as a Whig (the minority party in Fauquier County) and follower of Henry Clay, he failed to win election. After the start of the Civil War, though he'd disapproved of secession, when it became obvious that Virginia would secede, Ashby told his Mountain Rangers to again meet at Harper's Ferry. This time they became Company A of the 7th Virginia Cavalry, also known as "Ashby's Brigade" or the "Laurel Brigade" after a common plant in Virginia's Mountains. Ashby soon persuaded Governor John Letcher to order the militia to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. When secession was approved, Ashby made his move, but U.S. forces burned most of the arsenal buildings and 15,000 small arms before he could arrive.

At Harpers Ferry, Ashby was assigned to the Virginia Militia command of Colonel Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, whom he had met at Harpers Ferry and Charles Town in 1859. Ashby was initially assigned to guard fords across the Potomac River and bridges from Harpers Ferry to Point of Rocks, Maryland. He became known for visiting his pickets on long horseback rides (50-miles while guarding the Potomac, later 70 miles when guarding Stonewall Jackson's rear during the Valley Campaign), as well as for interfering with scouting operations of various Union forces. Ashby's men assisted Maryland men with Confederate sympathies to pass into Virginia, and they disrupted railroad traffic on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as well as interfered with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (including blowing up Dam No. 5 upon Jackson's orders when others had failed). Ashby's brother Richard was killed skirmishing with a Union patrol along the Potomac in June 1861. Hearing rumors that his brother had been bayoneted while trying to surrender, Ashby examined the corpse, came to hate Northerners and became obsessed with revenge.

On July 23, 1861, Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston appointed Ashby lieutenant colonel of the 7th Virginia Cavalry. Due to the illness of the regimental commander, Col. Angus McDonald, Ashby had effective control of half of the regiment, which he operated separately. When the commander retired in February 1862, Ashby assumed command of the entire regiment on March 12. Ashby organized the first Confederate horse artillery, named Chew's Battery, as part of this regiment. The 7th did not participate directly in the First Battle of Manassas, arriving on July 22, but Ashby aided the Confederate cause by screening the movement of Johnston's army to the Manassas area. The Union had hoped that Johnston's forces would be pinned down by Major General Robert Patterson, but Ashby's screen allowed Johnston to move freely without Patterson's interference. In October 1861, Ashby led an attack on Harpers Ferry, the armory having returned to Union control, but lost to Union forces led by Colonel John W. Geary in what became known as the "Battle of Bolivar Heights".