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. After striking at Boone on March 28, heading into Virginia on April 2, and returning to North Carolina a week later, Stoneman’s force occupied Lenoir over Easter weekend, April 15-17, 1865, with two brigades of raiders under Gen. Alvan C. Gillem. The church that stood there in 1865 became a prison for three days, holding 900 old men, boys, and Confederate soldiers captured while recuperating at their homes from wounds or illness; they filled the grounds and sanctuary of Saint James Episcopal Church, which served as a hospital as well as a prison. Some looting occurred in Lenoir, but most residents mainly endured fear. Joseph C. Norwood wrote that they had been through “a scene of alarm and very great danger,” but said the cavalrymen were “equipped in the very best manner, and under the severest discipline and were not allowed to plunder to any great extent or commit any acts of violence.” Ella Harper wrote on April 15, “At sunset the Yanks rushed in on us,” and said her household obtained a guard and “fared better than some others,” though she “did not undress or sleep all night.” On Easter Sunday, she wrote, the day was “unlike the Holy Sabbath,” with “excitement, confusion and hurry all day,” and that “Our poor prisoners seemed almost starved.” On the morning of April 17, part of Stoneman’s force rode west toward Morganton while Stoneman, the prisoners, and a guard headed northward toward Blowing Rock. Louisa Norward wrote Walter Lenoir that Union cavalrymen called Lenoir “the damnedest little rebel town they ever saw.” 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.