Tragedy in the Shenandoah Valley
The Story of the Summers-Koontz Execution
On May 22, 1865, Captain George W. Summers, Sergeant Isaac Newton Koontz and two companions from the Massanutten Rangers (Co. D, 7th Virginia Cavalry), left their homes in Page County to obtain their parole. For them, the war was over. What these men were doing was very common and in early May, Colonel Horatio B Reed, commanding the 22nd N.Y. Cavalry, reported that “upward of 900 soldiers belonging to the Army of Northern Virginia were paroled” by his provost-marshal-general during a patrol of the Shenandoah Valley.
Summers and Koontz were riding down the Valley Pike near Narrow Passage Creek toward Woodstock when they encountered a half-dozen troopers from Company H of the 22nd New York Cavalry. The author, Robert H. Moore II, describes the encounter: “What took place between the two parties or what words might have been exchanged can only be speculated upon, but in short order the Confederates ended up drawing their revolvers and demanding that the Federals surrender their horses.”
Moore has written extensively about the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley and is distantly related to several of the participants in events that occurred in May 1865. He has delved into the local history of Page County to set the stage for the ‘tragedy’ that unfolded in…