SUMMARY
John A. McCausland was a Confederate general during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Known as “Tiger John,” the former mathematics professor was hailed as a hero by the citizens of Lynchburg, Virginia, for repulsing an attack by the Union general David Hunter in June 1864. A month later, however, McCausland was condemned as a villain by the citizens of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, for acting on the orders of Jubal A. Early and burning their Cumberland Valley town in retaliation for Union actions in the Shenandoah Valley. The incident followed the famously unreconstructed McCausland through the rest of his long life, forcing him to leave the country for a time after the surrender at Appomattox, and becoming the headline of his many obituaries in 1927.