On March 24, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 6,000 cavalrymen from Tennessee into southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina to disrupt the Confederate supply line by destroying sections of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, the North Carolina Railroad, and the Piedmont Railroad. He struck at Boone on March 28, headed into Virginia on April 2, and returned to North Carolina a week later. Stoneman’s Raid ended at Asheville on April 26, the day Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Union Gen. William T. Sherman near Durham. After Confederate forces blocked Union Gen. Alvan C. Gillem’s planned route to Asheville at Swannanoa Gap on April 20, 1865, Gillem entered Rutherford County with two brigades of Stoneman’s raiders, arrived in Rutherfordton the next day, and two days later pressed on through the county toward Asheville with the 8th, 9th, and 13th Tennessee Cavalry. He ordered Col. William J. Palmer, commanding the 10th Michigan, 12th Ohio, and 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, to establish headquarters in Rutherfordton and then follow. Gillem’s command consisted of “Home Yankees,” natives of Tennessee and adjoining mountain counties of North Carolina, where bloody conflicts had pitted Unionists and secessionists against neighbors and sometimes family members; some of his soldiers had scores to settle, and they settled a few of them in Rutherford County. Palmer’s soldiers, entering Rutherfordton on the morning of April 25, were aghast at the depredations Gillem’s men had inflicted on civilians. Palmer remained in Rutherfordton until April 26, then marched about ten miles west and bivouacked. The next day he joined the pursuit of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had fled south from Virginia, rode through Rutherfordton, and took up the chase into South Carolina. Capt. Harry K. Weand of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry wrote that the Tennesseeans put pistols to citizens’ heads, forced them to surrender pocketbooks, and even took rings from ladies’ fingers.