Last Confederate Bivouac
Ayr Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A Confederate force under General Bradley T. Johnson camped here July 31, 1864, after raiding and burning Chambersburg. They were the last Confederates to camp on Pennsylvania soil. General William W. Averell’s Union calvary pursued Johnson’s and McCausland’s brigades and routed the Confederates at the Battle of Moorefield in WV on August 7, 1864. That victory marked the beginning of Union dominance in the Shenandoah Valley.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the summer of 1864, Confederate cavalry under General Bradley T. Johnson camped on this ground on July 31, just after McCausland's raiders had burned Chambersburg in retaliation for Union destruction in the Shenandoah Valley. They proved to be the last Confederate troops ever to camp on Pennsylvania soil. Union cavalry under General William W. Averell gave chase and routed the raiders a week later at the Battle of Moorefield in West Virginia.
Why it matters
This quiet field marks the final Confederate presence in Pennsylvania and the turning point that opened the way for Union control of the Shenandoah Valley in the war's last year.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the summer of 1864, the Civil War had entered its grinding, merciless final phase. The romantic illusions of 1861 were long gone. In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia — the fertile corridor that fed Confederate armies and offered a back-door route toward the North — both sides had begun waging war on farms, mills, and towns, not just on soldiers.
South-central Pennsylvania felt that hardening firsthand. This corner of Fulton County lay near the Maryland line, in the rolling ridges and valleys where a fast-moving cavalry column could slip across the border. For the people living here, the war was not a distant headline; it could arrive on horseback with little warning.
The burning of Chambersburg, just to the east, had made that terror concrete. Confederate cavalry had put much of that town to the torch as retaliation for Union destruction in the Valley. The raiders who camped on this ground were riding in the smoke of that act — and their presence marked how far, and how bitterly, the war had reached into the North.
People & events
On July 31, 1864, a Confederate force under General Bradley T. Johnson made camp on this ground. They had come from Chambersburg, which raiders under John McCausland had burned after the town could not pay a heavy ransom demand. These weary, hard-riding troopers would earn a somber distinction: they were the last Confederate soldiers ever to camp on Pennsylvania soil.
But the raid did not go unanswered. Union cavalry under General William W. Averell took up the pursuit, chasing the columns of Johnson and McCausland back across the border and into what is now West Virginia.
A week later, on August 7, 1864, Averell caught the Confederates at Moorefield. There he routed them decisively. The men who had spread fire across the Pennsylvania borderland were themselves scattered and beaten — a sharp reversal that closed the raid's brief, destructive arc.
Its place in the American story
This quiet field marks an ending. After the night of July 31, 1864, no organized Confederate force would ever again camp within Pennsylvania. The high-water reach of the Confederacy into this state — the tide that had crested a year earlier during the Gettysburg Campaign — receded here for good.
The Battle of Moorefield that followed was more than a single skirmish avenged. As the inscription notes, that victory marked the beginning of Union dominance in the Shenandoah Valley. Within weeks, Union forces under a new, aggressive command would begin the campaign that finally stripped the Valley of its power to feed and shield Confederate armies.
So this ground connects a local raid to the war's larger machinery. The burning of Chambersburg and the rout at Moorefield were two sides of the same brutal logic that would end the war — the recognition that breaking an army's supply and sanctuary, not just its battle lines, would decide the outcome.
If you visit
Come here expecting stillness, and let that stillness do its work. There is no fortress or grand battlefield to tour — just a field where, on a single summer night, the last Confederate camp in Pennsylvania flickered and then moved on. The power of the place is in knowing what it witnessed.
Stand and imagine tired horses, low fires kept small, and men who knew they were deep in hostile country and unlikely to linger. The next chapter of their story played out over the state line, at Moorefield, where the pursuit finally caught them.
This is a marker for travelers who like the war's edges rather than its famous centers. If you're tracing the 1864 raids through the borderland, this spot pairs naturally with Chambersburg to the east — the town whose burning set these riders in motion — and rewards anyone willing to stop where the fighting ran quiet.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Bradley T. Johnson
- · William W. Averell
- · John McCausland
Related events
- · Burning of Chambersburg
- · Battle of Moorefield
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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