Captain George W. Stump

Captain George W. Stump. "Stump's Battery". , This is Hickory Grove, the home of Adam and Mary Stump and their son Capt. George W. Stump, who led a company of the 18th Virginia Cavalry during the war. Capt. Stump was always heavily armed with a carbine and numerous revolvers; his men called him “Stump’s Battery.” Besides cooperating with McNeill’s Partisan Rangers, Stump also served under Gen. John D. Imboden. The general had such confidence in Stump that he employed him in October 1863 as a confidential messenger to Gen. Robert E. Lee. In December 1863, Imboden recommended Stump to Gen. Jubal A. Early: “If in pursuit of supplies you have to go to Hampshire County,…permit me to recommend to you, … Capt. George W. Stump, {who}…can give you more valuable information than any man in my command in regard to supplies in Hampshire and Hardy. He knows where every lot of cattle in those counties can be obtained.”, In February 1865, Stump met his end when Union Lt. Col. Edward W. Whitaker led a cavalry detachment from Winchester to Moorefield to capture Confederate cavalry raider Maj. Harry Gilmor. After catching Gilmor in bed on February 5 and fighting off his troopers, the expedition rode north to Romney. Maj. Henry H. Young, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s chief of scouts, led a few cavalrymen in advance of the column. En route, he captured a dozen Confederates at several houses and turned them over to Whitaker. Stump was here visiting his parents when he heard Young and his men approach and tried to flee. According to local tradition, Stump was either shot dead or wounded, captured, and executed.