Background
John Hanson McNeill was born on June 12, 1815, in Hardy County, Virginia. He was the son of Strother McNeill.
John Hanson McNeill was born on June 12, 1815, in Hardy County, Virginia. He was the son of Strother McNeill.
McNeill's formal education was meager, probably not extending beyond the country schools of the time.
In 1838, McNeill moved to Kentucky where he became a farmer and stock-raiser. After remaining there about six years, he became dissatisfied and returned to Virginia. Relatives in Missouri in time convinced him of that state's promising future, and, in 1848, with his family and slaves, he settled in Boone County and commenced farming operations.
He imported from Kentucky and from Ohio blooded short-horn cattle and developed the finest herd in Missouri. He was also vitally interested in various agricultural associations devoted to the care and breeding of the better types of live stock.
From 1848 to 1861, he lived the leisurely life of a Virginia gentleman and landowner, acquiring additional holdings in Daviess County, in northern Missouri, whither he had moved in 1855. By birth and by conviction a Southerner, McNeill urged that Missouri join the Confederacy, and, in 1861, under the governor's commission, he recruited and became captain of a company in Price's army.
He and his three sons fought through the Missouri campaigns of 1861-62, serving with devotion and distinction. Severely wounded and captured, he escaped from the federal prison at St. Louis and made his laborious way to Virginia and to the mountainous region of his boyhood.
It was by that time evident that Missouri was irrevocably lost to the Confederacy so McNeill decided to remain in the South. Upon authority of the Confederate Congress he organized, late in 1862, the McNeill Partisan Rangers, cooperating with the Southern army but independent in command. His company included friends and relatives selected from the surrounding territory and familiar with every mountain road and bypath.
For two years, "Hanse" McNeill and his rangers wrought great havoc among the Northern forces in several West Virginia counties, destroying numerous supply trains, railroad rolling stock and equipment, and capturing some 2600 prisoners. The terrain was admirably adapted to the method of fighting, which was suddenly to attack the enemy, scatter and destroy his supply and ammunition trains, then retreat to the inaccessible mountain fastnesses.
On October 2, 1864, while leading a surprise daybreak raid into the Shenandoah Valley, McNeill was accidentally and fatally shot by one of his own company. He died on November 10, at Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Six feet tall and of aristocratic bearing and manner, McNeill possessed a boldness, bravery, and magnanimity which endeared him to his command. He won the commendation of Lee as being "bold and intelligent" and was characterized officially by Sheridan as the "most daring and dangerous of all the bushwhackers".
Other Union generals respected and feared the Partisan Rangers and their commander. A minor figure of the Civil War, this intrepid soldier symbolized the best traits of the men who fought on both sides in that conflict.
In January 1837, McNeill was married to Jemima Cunningham.
