Charles Town, Hunter Hill, Chambersburg, the Cousins and the Burnings
The oft repeated explanation that Hunter Hill estate is historic only because it was the home of
Andrew Hunter, the chief prosecutor during the John Brown trial hardly does justice to the estate
and its owner’s true place in history.
Lawyer Andrew H. Hunter was born in Berkeley County on March 22, 1804, the same year the
3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson launched the Lewis and Clark expedition.
In 1845, he built Hunter Hill, a classic late Federal style mansion on land between East
Washington and Liberty Streets in Charlestown, Virginia (now Charles Town, West Virginia)
In 1832, nearly twenty years before John Brown’s raid, Hunter played a significant role in
rallying local support behind then President Andrew Jackson’s threat of military force against
Jackson’s native state of South Carolina. That state threatened both secession and nullification
over The Tariff Act of 1825.
Andrew Hunter served as the chief prosecutor during the trials of the captured members of John
Brown’s raiding party. John Brown summoned Andrew Hunter to Charlestown’s first old
jailhouse (now the Post Office) in his final hours to dictate to Hunter his last will and testament,
making Hunter one of the last persons to talk to Brown. On December 2, 1859, Brown was hung
on the grounds of what is now the Gibson-Todd House on South Samuel Street. In overall
command of security was then Colonel Robert E. Lee. Also present were future Confederate
Generals Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart and John McCausland. Also playing a small
role in the guarding of the hanging site were cadets from the Virginia Military Institute or VMI.
Another often forgotten presence at John Brown’s hanging was a person who was then only
famous for his acting skills, John Wilkes Booth.
At the start of the Civil War, Andrew Hunter reversed his well-known stance against a state’s
ability to secede from the Union. He sided with Virginia and thus the Confederacy in 1861. He
then went on to serve as an adviser to the General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War.
During the Union’s Shenandoah Valley Campaigns of 1864, Andrew’s first cousin, Union
General David Hunter was tasked by General Grant to employ slash and burn tactics throughout
the Shenandoah Valley in order to threaten Confederate controlled railroad links and also to
disrupt the valley’s critical agricultural economy that supported the Confederate war effort.
Declaring VMI to be a military target after the Battle of New Market, Hunter ordered the burning
of VMI in June of 1864.
General David Hunter was not only fiercely against slavery but he was a strong advocate of
enlisting black soldiers in the Union Army. After retaking Fort Pulaski in Georgia in 1862,
General Hunter single-handedly issued his famous General Order No. 11, emancipating all slaves
in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida. President Lincoln quickly rescinded the order, but later
issued his own Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was
so incensed at Hunter that he issued orders that if ever captured, David Hunter was to be
considered a felon and then executed.
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During the Shenandoah Valley Campaigns of 1864, Union troops swept into Jefferson County.
General David Hunter ordered his Cousin’s Andrew’s house (Hunter Hill) burned to the ground
on July 17, 1864. Andrew’s family was not allowed to remove anything from the house, only the
clothes on their backs. Union cavalry were also ordered to make camp on the estate’s beautiful
grounds. Cousin Andrew was taken prisoner, held for a month by the Union Army and then
unceremoniously released.
General Hunter also ordered other Union troops to a plantation outside of Shepherdstown, where
they burned down the house (Fountain Rock) of a prominent southern sympathizer. We now
know this place as Morgan’s Grove Park. From there Union troops headed to a plantation
(Bedford) near Duffield’s where they burned down the home of General Lee’s first cousin.
Many of the slash and burn tactics used by General Hunter and then by Union General William
T. Sherman, who took over the Shenandoah Valley Campaigns, were then used by Union
General William T. Sherman during his "March to the Sea" several months later.
The triple burnings in Jefferson County enraged the fiercely pro-slavery Confederate General
Jubal Early. General Early had been ordered by General Lee to slow if not stop General Hunter’s
campaign. General Early ordered Confederate cavalry under the command of General
McCausland to take over the pro-Union town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and hold it for a
ransom of $100,000 in gold or $500,000 in cash. Not receiving the ransom, the town was torched
on July 30, 1864. Chambersburg was the only major northern community burned down by
Confederate forces during the Civil War. "Remember Chambersburg" became a prominent battle
cry for Union troops. Early had previously set a $200,000 ransom for Frederick, Maryland
among other towns. Frederick paid. Many remember General Early from his famous near
invasion of Washington, DC in what became the Battle of Monocacy.
After the Civil War, Andrew Hunter rebuilt Hunter Hill on the same foundation. He went on the
play a part in the failed U.S. Supreme Court battle to return both Jefferson and Berkley Counties
back to Virginia. He also had a role in successfully returning the county seat of Jefferson County
back to the more pro-Confederate leaning Charlestown from the more pro-Union leaning
Shepherdstown. It had been relocated to Shepherdstown because the courthouse had been
heavily damaged during the pitched battles all around and including downtown Charles Town,
and in particular by Confederate General John Imboden's artillery barrages of the town's Union
garrison during the Battle of Charlestown on October 18, 1863.
Andrew Hunter died on November 21, 1888, twenty-three years after the end of the Civil War
and weeks after the election of the 22nd President of the United States, Grover Cleveland. The
intersection of Andrew Hunter and Hunter Hill with so many events in then Charlestown, the
states of West Virginia and Virginia, as well as our own United States is simply amazing. Some
of those events include:
• President Andrew Jackson Military Threat Over South Carolina’s Secession and Nullification
Plans, 1832
• Virginia’s Apportionment of Representatives, 1850
• John Brown’s Trial at the Jefferson County Court House, 1859
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• Virginia’s Succession Convention, 1861
• General David Hunter General Order #11
• Adviser to the Confederate General Robert E. Lee
• Shenandoah Valley Campaigns of 1864
• The burning of Hunter Hill, 1864
• General David Hunter and the Burning of The Virginia Military Institute (VMI), 1864
• General McCausland and the burning of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 1864
• Battle of Monocacy and the Confederate menacing of Washington D.C, 1864
• Union Generals Grant & Sheridan meeting at Rutherford House (now the Carriage Inn B&B) in
Charles Town, 1864
• Union General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea
• General David Hunter and the commission to try the conspirators of Lincoln's assassination,
1865
• Return of the Jefferson Courthouse from Shepherdstown to Charlestown, 1859
• U.S. Supreme Court battle (78 US 39) to return Jefferson and Berkley Counties back to
Virginia, 1871
• General Jubal Early and the “Lost Cause” depiction of Southern history, 1870s to present
For more information see:
1 .Andrew Hunter -https://books.google.com/books…
2. Burning of VMI - http://www.vmi.edu/archives.aspx?id=4669
3. Battle of Charlestown http://jeffersonhistoricalwv.org/CWmarkers.html
4. Battle of Charlestown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Charlestown
5. Charles Town History - http://www.charlestownwv.us/index.asp…
6. Confederate General Jubal A. Early - http://www.jeffersonhistoricalwv.org/thepeople.html#jae
7. Fort Sumter, South Carolina - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/…/fort-sumter-the-civilwar…/…
8. Hunter Hill Rezoning - http://articles.herald-mail.com/…/31242602_1_rezone-histori…
9. Hunter Hill Rezoning - http://www.journal-news.net/…/Hunter-Hill-rezoning-not-reco…
10. Hunter Hill Zoning Ordinance - http://sjf.stparchive.com/Archive/SJF/SJF10242012p06.php
11. Hunter Hill Preservation - http://historicrealestate.preservationnation.org/viewlistin…
12. Jefferson County Courthouse - http://www.jeffersoncountywv.org/about-j…/courthousehistory
13. Jefferson County, Civil war - http://jeffersonhistoricalwv.org/thehistory.html
14. John Brown - http://www.charlestownwv.us/index.asp…
15. John Brown - http://www.jeffersonhistoricalwv.org/thepeople.html#jb
16. John Brown - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1550.html
17. John Brown - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/…/john-browns-day-of-reckon…/…
18. John Brown - http://www.wvculture.org/history/jnobrown.html
19. John Brown - http://knopfdoubleday.com/book/140728/john-brownabolitionist/9780375726156/
20. Closing the Back Door, Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 http://www.civilwar.org/…/cedar-cre…/shenandoah1864wert.html
21. Tariff Act of 1825 - http://millercenter.org/president/jqadams/key-events
22. Union General David Hunter - http://www.nps.gov/fo…/learn/historyculture/david3
hunter.htm
23. Union Generals Grant & Sheridan at Rutherford House http://www.jeffersonhistoricalwv.org/thepeople.html
24. Burning of Chambersburg - http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/…/1776-1865/chambersburg-warda…
25. General David Hunter General Order #11 http://www.freedmen.umd.edu/hunter.htm#HUNTER
26. Union General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hard_War_in_Virginia_During_the_Civil_War#start_entry
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