May 18, 1864; Soon citizens credited him with saving Lynchburg from a raid by Union Army Major General David Hunter, who had invaded the Shenandoah Valley and burned the Virginia Military Institute as well as the house of former Virginia governor John Letcher. McCausland sent units to harass the Union supply trains, as well as burned bridges and fired upon the crews sent to rebuild them, buying time for Generals Grumble Jones and John Imboden to join forces at Staunton (although Jones would die at the Battle of Piedmont on June 5) and then reinforce Lynchburg, where a train ruse about other reinforcements led Hunter to turn back. McCausland fought as a cavalry brigade commander during the Valley Campaigns of 1864, under Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early, using his 2,800 men in various configurations to raid into Maryland (often extorting large sums of money from towns by threatening to burn them) and Pennsylvania. Under Early's orders, on July 30, 1864, McCausland burned the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, after it failed to pay a $100,000 extortion demand, justifying it as retaliation for the private property destroyed during Hunter's Shenandoah Valley campaign. In fact, Early's orders left little room for compromise or negotiation, and bankers had removed most of the money from Chambersburg days earlier. Plus despite Union General Darius Couch's early morning telegrams about the oncoming raiders, General William Averell's cavalry did not arrive from nearby Greencastle until after 2p.m., only to find still-burning ruins, displaced civilians and a trail of miscellaneous merchandise looted, then dropped by McCausland's departing raiders. The Union army relentlessly pursued McCausland's cavalry, ambushing and routing them at the Battle of Moorefield on August 8. After Early's campaign failed, McCausland rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia in the Siege of Petersburg, the Battle of Five Forks, and the Appomattox Campaign. As at Fort Donelson, McCausland refused to surrender but escaped with his cavalry from Appomattox Court House before Robert E. Lee's surrender, but withdrew to Lynchburg and disbanded his unit soon after. He was paroled in Charleston, West Virginia, on May 22, 1865. Later life After the war, McCausland spent two years in Europe and Mexico before returning to the United States. In Mexico he was in Maximilian's military service. He faced arson charges for the burning of Chambersburg, but was pardoned by President Ulysses S. Grant. With part of his inheritance from his father, he purchased