John McCausland, Jr. (September 13, 1836 – January 22, 1927) was a brigadier general in the Confederate army, famous for the ransom of Hagerstown, Maryland, and the razing of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War.

[11] McCausland sent units to harass the Union supply trains, as well as burned bridges and fired upon the crews sent to rebuild them, buying time for Generals Grumble Jones and John Imboden to join forces at Staunton (although Jones would die at the Battle of Piedmont on June 5) and then reinforce Lynchburg, where a train ruse about other reinforcements led Hunter to turn back.

Early, using his 2,800 men in various configurations to raid into Maryland (often extorting large sums of money from towns by threatening to burn them) and Pennsylvania.

[7] Under Early's orders, on July 30, 1864, McCausland burned the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, after it failed to pay a $100,000 extortion demand,[13][14][15] justifying it as retaliation for the private property destroyed during Hunter's Shenandoah Valley campaign.

[7] In fact, Early's orders left little room for compromise or negotiation, and bankers had removed most of the money from Chambersburg days earlier.

Plus despite Union General Darius Couch's early morning telegrams about the oncoming raiders, General William Averell's cavalry did not arrive from nearby Greencastle until after 2p.m., only to find still-burning ruins, displaced civilians and a trail of miscellaneous merchandise looted, then dropped by McCausland's departing raiders.

[7] With part of his inheritance from his father, he purchased a tract of 6,000 acres (24 km²) 17 miles from Point Pleasant in Mason County, West Virginia.

A documentary was commissioned by the West Virginia Department of Transportation as part of a mitigation to use McCausland Family property for its development of U.S. Route 35.

Part one, The Legacy, explores General McCausland's Civil War history, along with that of Native Americans, the Battle of Point Pleasant, and other notable figures from the Kanawha Valley and part two, The Land, meets up with the modern day McCauslands and other farmers in the region to discuss the history and its impact upon their agricultural pursuits.