Tiger John: The Rebel Who Burned Chambersburg

By David L. Phillips

The military biography of John McCausland has essentially been overlooked by Civil War historians, but he was a significant officer in the Confederate army who fought throughout the war for the state he loved more than country, Virginia. Though born in St.Louis, he was orphaned early in life and lived with his widowed aunt in what was to become West Virginia during the Civil War.

He had many similarities in common with "Stonewall" Jackson: orphaned while young, he grew up to manhood amond the proud mountain people of western Virginia, had a military education at the Virginia Military Institute, and young McCausland was a teaching assistant at VMI in both mathematics and artillery tactics under Jackson's supervision. Both were with the Cadet contingent serving as guards at John Brown's execution.

Each was drawn to the defense of his "Native State," Virginia, but McCausland was sent into "his country" by Lee before hostilities began in order to recruit. He served there in the initial campaigns that eventually resulted in the loss of the entire western Virginia region to Federal control. McCausland had the misfortune to serve under very poor commanders in western Virginia and at Fort Donelson where he lead an attack that broke the Union encirlement only to be recalled to the trenches to await surrender. Escaping the doomed fort under less than honorable orders from his commander, he was denied promotion consideration until after the bloody battle of Cloyd's Mountain in 1864.

He is remembered for the Rebel raid into Pennsylvania in which the town of Chambersburg was burned in retribution for Federal atrocities in the Shenandoah Valley. After this raid, a reward was placed on his head and he had to leave the country at the end of the war until a full pardon was granted. Bitter to the last of his days, he was described as "The Last Confederate Stronghold" until his death in 1927, the next to last surviving Confederate general officer.