 The Loudoun Rangers were formed in the spring of 1862, when the Union Army first occupied Loudoun County as part of its campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.Returning with the army was local unionist Samuel Means, who had been run out of the county the previous year by local Confederates.Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton issued Means orders to raise a company of men to serve as an independent command, of which he would be captain, for special service in Loudoun and along the Virginia-Maryland border.