As part of the third major Confederate invasion of the North, this under commanding Gen. Jubal Early with several corps of troops on a mission to attack the national capital at Washington, D.C. and possibly liberate Southern prisoners-of-war at Camp Point Look-Out in southern Maryland at the confluence of the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River in St. Mary's County. After the Battle of the Monocacy, along the Monocacy River on July 9, 1864, southeast of Frederick in Frederick County, Maryland, Colonel Gilmor's command, along with Frederick's Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson's Maryland Confederate infantry and cavalry, made a series of raids around Baltimore going as far east as Magnolia Station in Harford County, Maryland and Fork, Maryland. On July 10, 1864, Major Harry Gilmor of the 2nd Maryland Cavalry was given 135 men of the 1st and 2nd Maryland, and directed to cross northern Baltimore County into Harford County at Jerusalem Mill, and destroy the railroad bridge of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad at Magnolia Station, across the Gunpowder River, northeast of the city, in Harford County. In the meantime, while crossing his home county, he stopped and visited his family at the family estate "Glen Ellen", then near the former village of Warren, now beneath the surface of Loch Raven Reservoir. Early on July 11, Gilmor's advance group passed the home of Ishmael Day on Sunshine Avenue in Fork. Day, a strong Union sympathizer, had hung a large United States flag to greet Gilmor's troops. Sergeant Eugene Fields, a member of the advance guard unit, told Day to take the flag down. Day refused, so Sgt. Fields dismounted to do it himself. Day shot Field at close range with a shotgun. Day immediately fled, hiding under an apple cider press for days until the passing troops were gone. Gilmor's men then burned Day's home and barn. Maj. Gilmor sent Sgt. Field to Wright's Hotel (operated by W.O.B. Wright on the Harford Road), where he later died.