Capture of Generals

A company of Confederates, young men from Cumberland, Maryland, Hampshire and Hardy Counties, West Virginia, captured several picket posts, obtained the countersign “Bulls Gap,” rode into the city, and without firing a shot captured Union Generals Kelly and Crook and Adjutant General Thayer Melvin, sending them to Richmond, Virginia, as prisoners of war. Crook was captured in this building, then known as the Revere House, while Kelly and Melvin were taken from the Barnum House, now the Windsor Hotel, as the generals slept in their beds. General Lew Wallace was stationed here in command of a large body of Indiana Zouaves, and Brigadier General Hayes, later President of the United States, was also here. This most daring episode of the Civil War created a great sensation across the country because several thousand Union troops were stationed in Cumberland at the time.

Cumberland, Maryland · United States