Colonel Elijah V. White and his 35th Battalion of Virginia Cavalry were in winter quarters with the Confederate army in the Shenandoah Valley, watching their rations dwindle.
Around Christmas 1864, Col. Thomas C. Devin's cavalry brigade from the Harpers Ferry garrison, who regularly patrolled Loudoun, made camp northwest of the Unionist village of Lovettsville in the vicinity of George's Schoolhouse, just east of the Short Hill Mountain.
The Federals were wholly unable to disrupt communication between the partisan groups operating in the county, and White was able to bring together a raiding party of 80 or so men composed of members of the 35th, Mosby's Rangers and John Mobberly's independent command.
Believing their cover blown, although it had not, the party charged the Union camp, only to discover it had recently been reinforced with an additional 200 men, bringing the total to 400.
Under the cover of dark and a blanket of fresh snow, the raiding party was able to surprise and capture 150 men and horses of the recently arrived reinforcements.