Divided Loyalties

Divided Loyalties. The Neal Family. A block away, at what is now 71 East Main Street, stood the Abner Neal house. In August 1862, Federal soldiers arrested sixteen Westminster residents as Southern sympathizers and escorted them to Baltimore for questioning. The group, soon released, included Neal’s two sons, Henry and Frank. The young men joined the Confederate army in September 1862, when Col. Thomas L. Rosser’s 5th Virginia Cavalry swept through Westminster during the Antietam Campaign. The Neals served in Co. D, 1st Maryland Cavalry (CSA)., They returned home on June 29, 1863, helping guide Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry corps through Maryland en route to Gettysburg. As their mother, Rose, and sister, Mary, sat in their second-floor parlor reading the Bible, they heard a shout – “The Rebels are coming!” – in the street. Stepping to the balcony, they asked, “How do you know they are Rebels?” The answer came, “I know Henry and Frank Neal!” At that moment Rose Neal placed a bookmark in the Bible where she had stopped reading, and it was never removed. Soon, the Neal boys waved hello as they road west on Main Street, but before long they dashed by the other way in pursuit of Delaware cavalrymen escaping toward Baltimore. After the war, Rose Neal warned her sons against returning home because of anti-Confederate sentiment, and they never came back., On July 4, after the Battle of Gettysburg, Union Gen. John Gibbon arrived at the house, where Rose Neal treated his wounds. She was his wife’s aunt.