Colonel Henry Kyd Douglas, CSA 1838-1903

Douglas was raised at Ferry Hill Place, on the Maryland side of the Potomac River at Shepherdstown. In 1861, he enlisted in the 2nd Virginia Infantry and fought in the Battle of First Manassas. From April to October, 1862, Douglas was the youngest officer to serve on the staff of Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson. Through the rest of the War he served as a general staff officer and infantry officer and was wounded and captured at Gettysburg. Swapped in a prisoner exchange in 1864, he commanded an infantry brigade in the Appomattox Campaign up to Lee's surrender.

When peace came, Douglas resumed his law practice and eventually moved to Hagerstown. Governor Oden Bowie appointed him to serve on a commission which created the Washington Confederate Cemetery on South Potomac Street (9 blocks south of here) and re-buried over 2000 Confederate war dead. Active in the Maryland National Guard, Douglas was promoted to Major General and served as the Adjutant General from 1892 to 1896. When America went to war with Spain in 1898, Douglas was one of several former Confederate officers who were considered for the rank of general in the U.S. Army as a means of securing southern support for the war. Dissatisfied with a post offered by President McKinley that carried only the rank of major in the United States Volunteers, he declined the
appointment.

Douglas lived here from about 1879 until his death in 1903. After his death, his wartime diary was published under the title I Rode With Stonewall, which is considered a major first-person account of service written by a Confederate staff officer.

Subsequent owners modified the house to its current appearance.

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