David Hunter was an American military officer. He served as a Union general during the American Civil War. He achieved notability for his unauthorized 1862 order emancipating slaves in three Southern states, for his leadership of United States troops during the Valley Campaigns of 1864, and as the president of the military commission trying the conspirators involved with the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
David Hunter
Historical marker about General Orders No. 7, erected by the Georgia Historical Society in 2008
The Valley campaigns of 1864 began as operations initiated by Union Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and resulting battles that took place in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the American Civil War from May to October 1864. Some military historians divide this period into three separate campaigns. This article considers them together, as the campaigns interacted and built upon one another.
Funkhoser House and Farm, Toms Brook, Shenandoah County, Virginia
The ruins of the Virginia Military Institute after Hunter's Raid in 1864.
Shenandoah Valley operations, May–July 1864
Shenandoah Valley operations, August–October 1864