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Richfield
"The Boy General of the Golden Lock"
It was here that George Armstrong Custer was first introduced as a general to the troops he would command. The first order signed by Gen. George G. Meade as the newly appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac on June 28, 1863 promoted three young captians, Custer, Elon J. Farnsworth and Wesley Merritt, to the rank of brigadier-general, at the request of Gen. Alfred Pleasonton Commander of the Union Cavalry Corps. Two of them, Custer, age 23 and Farnsworth, age 25, were notified of their promotions at the City Hotel in downtown Frederick. They were assigned to newly formed Third Division of cavalry camped here on June 28-29 as brigade commanders.
On June 29, Custer and Farnsworth arrrived here to take command of their respective brigades. Some of the troopers, upon seeing Custer for the first time, called him "the boy General of the Golden Lock."
From Richfield, Custer and Farnsworth rode north to Gettysburg. Farnsworth died in the battle on July 3, while Custer went on to be one of the Civil War's great cavalry generals. He died on June 25, 1876 at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Montana Territory.
Also on June 29, 1863, the I and XI Infantry Corps, Army of the Potomac, passed Richfield on their march to Gettysburg. Meade rode by while returning from Gettysburg on July 7.
George Washington slept here twice. Richfield was the first Frederick County home of Maryland's first elected governor, Thomas Johnson, Brigadier General of Maryland troops in the American Revolution and Washington's longtime friend. |