John R. McNulty

“one of the most brilliant achievements of the war.” – Major Halsey of the 21st Virginia speaking of Lieutenant McNulty’s Baltimore Light Artillery’s first shot at Old Town.''

Lieutenant John R. McNulty of Baltimore, Maryland (1832-1912) was the Confederacy (American Civil War) war hero, who with a single strategic shot of his 2nd Maryland Artillery command’s (Baltimore Light Artillery) Confederate States of America (CSA) guns at the Battle of Old Town (U.S. Civil War 1864 Valley Campaign), while perilously close to Union Army (Federal) forces, saved Brig. Gen. (CSA) John McCausland’s element of the Army of Northern Virginia from entrapment behind Union (American Civil War) lines on return route from raids into Maryland and Pennsylvania and their despicable sacking and burning of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in retaliation for the Union Army burning of the Virginia Military Institute and as part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864.

the historical Context
Lt. Gen. (CSA) Jubal A. Early’s (under whom McCausland served) Valley Campaigns of ’64 were part of a strategy to save the Confederate breadbasket for the provision of the Army of Northern Virginia from the barn burners Maj. Gen. (USA) “Black Dave” David Hunter and, later, General (USA) Philip Sheridan and to menace Washington, D.C. as part of the larger strategy of Gen. (CSA) Robert E. Lee and Gen. (CSA) Joseph E. Johnston for the outnumbered and out-resourced Confederate States Army to break the Northern populations resolve for war and force the Union to peace parlay by bringing the horror of battle to Northern soil while bogging down advancing Union Army troops. This strategy was near successful but for Jefferson Davis’ improvident decision to replace Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who was prudent with his charge of his troops lives, with the reckless John Bell Hood. Abraham Lincoln himself did not believe that he had any chance of being reelected in the Presidential election of 1864 on his pro war ticket against opponent reconciliation or “truce” and “peace candidate” relieved General of the Army (United States) George B. McClellan, until the last moments when Major general (USA) William Tecumseh Sherman, taking advantage of Hood’s earlier precipitous troop movements, to Northern public adulation breached the western Confederate defensive line at the Battle of Atlanta.

the shot and its follow on
McCausland’s forces were blocked at Old Town, Maryland at the Potomac River between Hancock, Maryland and Springfield, West Virginia by Union Army foot troops and, also, a Union Army iron clad armored train containing both other well shielded Federal troops in its troop cars and a gunnery car, itself, containing a 12 lbs Howitzer, while also pursued by superior Federal forces from the rear. McNulty brought his horse drawn light cannon to high ground within 200 yards of the iron clad. From this vantage and under a shower of Union bullets, he directed the fire of a first cannon shot which breached and exploded the train’s boiler. In the ensuing commotion, Federal troops scattered from within and without the train. Lt. McNulty then directed the fire of a second shot, astoundingly, from the same 200 yards distant, precisely through one of the Howitzer car’s armaments open defensive musket portals, disabling this Howitzer weapon and causing the train’s last Federal troops to evacuate the gunnery car. Quickly pursued by the Confederates, the frontal Union troops, thereafter, negotiated their own surrender and parole (withdrawal from the combat), and McCausland’s forces returned to the relative safety of West Virginia, thereafter, without further incident.

the prologue
Later, during the disastrous October 9, 1864 engagement of the Battle of Tom's Brook, Tom's Brook, Virginia, it was Lt. McNulty, who first saved and, then, more effectively repositioned the Confederate guns to high ground when Maj. Gen. (CSA) Thomas Rosser’s Laurel Brigade (whom the Baltimore Light Artillery were supporting) broke and ran. It was also Lt. McNulty who, even later, in aftermath of the battle, with his 2 surviving weary gun teams and guns, in a dashingly heroic retirement, while evading Brevet Brigadier Thomas Devin and the entirety of his Federal 6th New Yorkers who were in pursuit determined to capture the guns, managed to save one of the two remaining Confederate artillery pieces by strategically abandoning the other in the after battle chase. McNulty’s Baltimore Light Artillery had lost 4 guns and 19 of their crews in the ferocious battling at Tom’s Brook.

By the time of the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, the final U.S. Civil War engagement of the Army of Northern Virginia, “the Baltimore Light Artillery (CSA), commanded by Lt. John R. McNulty” were too depleted to any longer take the field. While always referenced in histories as “Lieutenant” or “the Lieutenant”, McNulty was repeatedly promoted during the war and, actually, held the rank of major by the close of the Army of Northern Virginia’s combat.

A memorial to McNulty, the other also there listed of its officers and the 2nd Maryland Artillery (Baltimore Light Artillery) itself stands at the U.S. Antietam National Battlefield. It states that these Marylanders fought at the U.S. Civil War battles of “Harpers Ferry; Winchester; Front Royal; Cross Keys; Port Republic; Woodstock; Gaines' Mills; Malvern Hill; Bristoe Station; Cunningham's Ford; Groveton; Rappahannock; Second Mannassas; Antietam; Yellow Tavern; Carlisle; Gettysburg; Culpepper C.H.; Mine Run; Brandy Station; Chambersburg; Leestown; Frederick; OldTown; Waynesboro; Maurytown”. This is a total of 26 U.S. Civil War battles that Lt. John R. McNulty, commander of the Baltimore Light Artillery, despite his intrepidity remarkably survived unlike most of the Light Artillery's other officers and enlisted.

As also indicated on the memorial, the 2nd Maryland Artillery (Baltimore Light Artillery) was organized of Southern sympathizing Maryland volunteers in Richmond, Virginia on August 17, 1861.

After the war, McNulty continued to live in Baltimore, Maryland where he is noted to have been prominent enough in politics to have served as a Presidential elector for James A. Garfield in 1881. and where he is also noted to have lived until the ripe old age of 80 years.