Herndon Station Raid

Herndon Station Raid. "My loss was nothing". , At midday on March 17, 1863, 40 blue-coated cavalrymen ambled into Herndon Station on the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad in no-man's-land between Confederate and Union positions. The hamlet contained a depot building and steam-powered sawmill, post office, locksmith shop, and a few houses surrounded by farms. The 21 enlisted men of the 1st Vermont Cavalry guarding the depot hardly noticed because that morning, their regiment's Maj. William Wells and two other officers had come to learn whether soldiers were stealing from civilians. Suddenly, the horesman dropped their blue cloaks, revealed their gray uniforms, whipped out their pistols, and captured the Vermonters, including a few who ran into the nearby sawmill, without firing a shot. As they prepared to leave with their prisoners, a raider pointed out to their leader, Capt. John S. Mosby the "finely equipped" horses outside Nat and Kitty Hanna's house (it stood a block in front of you on Elden St.). Wells and other officers were eating lunch there. Two were captured fleeing out the front door. Wells tried to hide in the attic, but he fell through the thin flooring. Mosby gleefully reported that he had taken "25 prisoners, a major (Wells), 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, and 21 men, all their arms, 26 horses, and equipments. … My loss was nothing." Mosby's bold use of the element of surprise served, wrote a Union officer in understatement, to "dispirit our men.", [Captions:] , Maj. William Wells, despite his embarrassing capture, was a respected cavalry commander, one of the best, in the opinion of Gen Philip H. Sheridan. Wells was awarded the Medal of Honor on September 8, 1891, for leading his 2nd Battalion, 1st Vermont Cavalry "in a daring charge at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863., During Reconstruction, northerners including former soldiers who liked the area settled here, and Herndon grew. The Freedmen's Bureau assisted formerly enslaved people, and by 1870 34 African American households were located in Herndon. The men included farm laborers, a blacksmith and his apprentice, an independent farmer or two, and railroad workers. The county's African American population increased from 3,788 in 1860 to 4,283 in 1870.