McNeill, John Hanson

John Hanson McNeill was from western Virginia (present day West Virginia) and led a Confederate ranger unit during the Civil War. McNeill's rangers were in the vicinity of Carlisle during the Gettysburg campaign but they returned to Virginia before the battle began with valuable sheep, cattle and horses.
Life Span
to
    Full name
    John Hanson McNeil
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    South
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Children
    5
    Family
    Strother McNeill (father), Amy Pugh (mother), Jemima Harness Cunningham (wife), Jesse McNeil (son)
    Occupation
    Military
    Farmer or Planter
    Clergy
    Relation to Slavery
    Slaveholder
    Church or Religious Denomination
    Methodist
    Military
    Confederate Army

    John Hanson McNeil (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    With the failure of [Confederate general Sterling] Price's conventional campaign to win Missouri, McNeill turned his attention to unconventional means to win Confederate independence. Along with his son Jesse, he made his way across the country back to their ancestral home in Hardy County, Virginia, in July 1862 with the outline of a plan to wage guerrilla war against the Union. Under the terms of the Confederate Congress's Partisan Ranger Act of 28 April 1862, McNeill and a number of other officers were authorized to raise independent commands to raid Union army supply trains and pocket the proceeds. From August 1862 until March 1863 McNeill and his band, recruited from Hardy County, operated under the overall command of Colonel John Imboden, engaging in a series of minor raids that infuriated local Union commanders and eventually provoked stern countermeasures.
    James K. Hogue, "McNeill, John Hanson," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00692.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "McNeill, John Hanson," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6243.