Harry Gilmor

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Harry W. Gilmor (January 24, 1838 – March 4, 1883) served as Baltimore City Police Commissioner in the 1870's, but he was most noted as a Confederate cavalry officer during the American Civil War. His daring raids gained his partisans fame as "Gilmor's Raiders."

Gilmor was born at "Glen Ellen," the family estate in Baltimore County, Maryland. He was the son of Robert Gilmor and Miss Ellen Ward, daughter of Judge William H. Ward. Harry was the fifth of eleven children.

As a member of Captain Charles Ridgely’s Baltimore County Horse Guards, he was arrested and imprisoned in Fort McHenry following the occupation of Baltimore by Federal troops. Upon his release, he traveled South and rejoined the fighting eventually. For a while, he served under General Turner Ashby. He was again captured during the Maryland Campaign and spent five months in prison. During the Gettysburg Campaign, Major Gilmor was assigned command of the First and Second Maryland Cavalry, supporting General George Steuart's infantry brigade. Gilmor was the provost marshal of the town of Gettysburg while it was occupied by the Confederates from July 1 – 4.

After the Battle of Monocacy on July 9, 1864, Colonel Gilmor's command, along with General Bradley T. Johnson's infantry, made a series of raids around Baltimore going as far east as Magnolia Station in Harford County, Maryland and Fork, Maryland. On July 10th, 1864 Major Harry Gilmor of the 2nd Maryland Cavalry was given 135 men of the 1st and 2nd Maryland, and directed to cross Baltimore County into Harford County, and destroy the railroad bridge of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad at Magnolia Station, northeast of the city. Early on the morning of July 11th Gilmor’s cavalrymen reached Magnolia Station, [Major Harry W. Gilmor] located just off present-day I-95 near Joppa. There they proceeded to wreck two trains, one northbound and one southbound. After first evacuating the passengers and looting the cars, the troopers set fire to one of the trains and backed it over the trestle, thus partially destroying the bridge. To further sweeten the pot, aboard the northbound train was an unexpected prize – convalescing Union General Wm. B. Franklin. This raid was always regarded as one of the most daring ever attempted by detached cavalry on either side during the war.

Later in the day on July 11, 1864, Gilmore's advance group were passing the home of Ishmael Day on Sunshine Avenue in Fork, MD. Day was a Union sympathizer, and knowing Gilmor's troops were passing through, hung a large Union flag across the road. In the advance guard unit, Confederate color bearer and Ordinance Sergeant Eugene Fields told Day to take the flag down. After Day refused, an argument followed and Ishmael Day shot Sgt. Field at close range with a shotgun. Gilmor's men burned Day's home and Day immediately fled- cowereing under a cider press for days until the passing troops were gone. The mortally wounded Sgt. Field was taken to Wright's Hotel operated by W.O.B. Wright on Harford Road accompanied by Gilmor where Field later died.

Gilmor was eventually ordered to take his command to Hardy County, West Virginia and attack the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. There, he was captured on February 4, 1865, and was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor until July 24, 1865.

After the war, Gilmor moved to New Orleans, where he married Miss Mentoria Nixon Strong, daughter of Jasper Strong and Eliza Julia Nixon. Gilmor and his wife would have three children.

He wrote his war memoirs, entitled Four Years in the Saddle (New York, Harper & Bros., 1866). He soon returned to Maryland and was elected a colonel of the cavalry in the Maryland National Guard. He also served as the Baltimore City Police Commissioner from 1874 to 1879. Gilmor died in Baltimore, plagued by complications from a war injury to his jaw. He was buried in Loudon Park Cemetery in an area now known as "Confederate Hill." At his death, Baltimore police stations flew their flags at half-mast.

The Colonel Harry W. Gilmor Camp #1388 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans was named in Gilmor's honor.

The following anecdote is from the Baltimore Sun, March 5, 1883, as quoted on the "Adopt-a-Confederate" website:

Among others who had a great respect for Colonel Gilmor, may be named General U.S. Grant. Gen. Grant, upon returning from the funeral of Garfield, met Colonel Gilmor in New York. The Colonel remarked, “General, you have just returned from a sorrowful scene.”

“Yes,” replied Grant.

“It appears to me,” said Gilmor, “that nothing can destroy or disintegrate the solidity of the Union.”

“No,” said General Grant; “If you could not do it, no man can.”

A short time afterwards, Colonel Gilmor met Gen. Grant in New York again, and approaching the ex-President, saluted him and exclaimed, “General, I suppose you forget me!”