The action at Mount Zion Church was a cavalry skirmish during the American Civil War that took place on July 6, 1864. The skirmish was fought between Union forces under Major William H. Forbes and Confederate forces under Colonel John S. Mosby near Aldie in Loudoun County, Virginia as part of Mosby's Operations in Northern Virginia. After successfully raiding the Union garrison at Point of Rocks, Maryland, Mosby's Rangers routed Forbes's command, which had been sent into Loudoun County to engage and capture the Rangers. The fight resulted in a Confederate victory.
On July 2, Col. John S. Mosby was informed of Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early's plans to invade Maryland by the latter's quartermaster, Hugh Swartz, who was then traveling through Fauquier County. In order to aid Early's raid, Mosby planned a raid into Maryland of his own to cut telegraph wires between Washington, D.C., and Harpers Ferry. Accordingly, he ordered a rendezvous of the Rangers the following morning at Rectortown to which 250 Rangers responded. The Rangers spent the day in the saddle making it to Purcellville by days end where they made camp for the night. The next morning, July 4, the Rangers traveled the rest of the distance to the Potomac River, arriving across from Berlin (present day Brunswick) around 11 a.m., whereupon scouts were dispatched along the river to find possible targets of attack. When they returned, Mosby was informed of a small Union force at Point of Rocks, Maryland. Mosby determined this would be the Rangers target and they set out east down the Potomac to that village.
That same day, 100 troopers of the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry and 50 from the 13th New York Cavalry under Maj. William H. Forbes were dispatched from Falls Church into Loudoun County by Col. Charles Russell Lowell to hunt down Mosby and his Rangers. The force traveled west down the Little River Turnpike (present day U.S. Route 50) to Lenah and then headed north up the Carolina Road toward Leesburg, stopping at Ball's Mill on the Goose Creek for the night. The following day, the Federals traveled to Aldie and then to Leesburg before returning to Ball's Mill.
Upon arriving across the river from Point of Rocks, the Rangers found the village held by two companies of Federal infantry and two companies of cavalry in the form of the Loudoun Rangers, totaling 350 Federals in all. One of the companies of infantry inhabited Patton's Island in the middle of the Potomac, while the second occupied a small fort on high ground C&O Canal. The Loudoun Rangers were encamped in the village. Mosby immediately set to work clearing Patton's Island in preparation for crossing the river. He deployed Ranger Sam Chapman with his lone howitzer on the bluff above the river bank and ordered a detachment of sharpshooters under Lt. Albert Wrenn to wade into the river and attack the Federal position on the island. The Federal infantry exchanged fire with the Rangers for several minutes before giving way to the combined rifle and artillery fire and fled to the Maryland shore, tearing up the small bridge over the canal as they crossed it. The Rangers then dashed across the river to the Maryland shore where they began exchanging fire with the Federals across the canal. Many of the Rangers immediately set about repairing the bridge using planking from an old building. As soon as it was complete the Rangers ran across, led by Henry Hatcher who ran into the Union camp under heavy fire and captured its flag. Once across the canal the Rangers quickly drove the Federals from the town.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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