Transcriber's Note:

 This etext was produced from "True: The Man's Magazine, " December 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. 

 Rebel Raider

 by H. Beam Piper

 * * * * *

It was almost midnight, on January 2, 1863, and the impromptu party atthe Ratcliffe home was breaking up. The guest of honor, General J. E. B. Stuart, felt that he was overstaying his welcome--not at theRatcliffe home, where everybody was soundly Confederate, but inFairfax County, then occupied by the Union Army. 

About a week before, he had come raiding up from Culpepper with astrong force of cavalry, to spend a merry Christmas in northernVirginia and give the enemy a busy if somewhat less than happy NewYear's. He had shot up outposts, run off horses from remount stations, plundered supply depots, burned stores of forage; now, beforereturning to the main Confederate Army, he had paused to visit hisfriend Laura Ratcliffe. And, of course, there had been a party. Therewas always a party when Jeb Stuart was in any one place long enough toorganize one. 

They were all crowding into the hallway--the officers of Stuart'sstaff, receiving their hats and cloaks from the servants and bucklingon their weapons; the young ladies, their gay dresses showing only thefirst traces of wartime shabbiness; the matrons who chaperoned them;Stuart himself, the center of attention, with his hostess on his arm. 

"It's a shame you can't stay longer, General, " Laura Ratcliffe wassaying. "It's hard on us, living in conquered territory, under enemyrule. "

"Well, I won't desert you entirely, Miss Ratcliffe, " Stuart told her. "I'm returning to Culpepper in the morning, as you know, but I mean toleave Captain Mosby behind with a few men, to look after the loyalConfederate people here until we can return in force and in victory. "

Hearing his name, one of the men in gray turned, his hands raised tohook the fastening at the throat of his cloak. Just four days short ofhis thirtieth birthday, he looked even more youthful; he wasconsiderably below average height, and so slender as to give theimpression of frailness. His hair and the beard he was wearing at thetime were very light brown. He wore an officer's uniform withoutinsignia of rank, and instead of a saber he carried a pair of1860-model Colt . 44's on his belt, with the butts to the front so thateither revolver could be drawn with either hand, backhand orcrossbody. 

There was more than a touch of the dandy about him. The cloak he wasfastening was lined with scarlet silk and the gray cock-brimmed hatthe slave was holding for him was plumed with a squirrel tail. Atfirst glance he seemed no more than one of the many young gentlemen ofthe planter class serving in the Confederate cavalry. But then onelooked into his eyes and got the illusion of being covered by a pairof blued pistol muzzles. He had an aura of combined ruthlessness, selfconfidence, good humor and impudent audacity. 

For an instant he stood looking inquiringly at the general. Then herealized what Stuart had said, and the blue eyes sparkled. This wasthe thing he had almost given up hoping for--an independent commandand a chance to operate in the enemy's rear. 

 * * * * *

In 1855, John Singleton Mosby, newly graduated from the University ofVirginia, had opened a law office at Bristol, Washington County, Virginia, and a year later he had married. 

The son of a well-to-do farmer and slave-owner, his boyhood had beendevoted to outdoor sports, especially hunting, and he was accounted anexpert horseman and a dead shot, even in a society in which skill withguns and horses was taken for granted. Otherwise, the outbreak of thewar had found him without military qualifications and completelyuninterested in military matters. Moreover, he had been a rabidanti-secessionist. 

It must be remembered, however, that, like most Southerners, heregarded secession as an entirely local issue, to be settled by thepeople of each state for themselves. He took no exception to theposition that a state had the constitutional right to sever itsconnection with the Union if its people so desired. His objection tosecession was based upon what he considered to be political logic. Herealized that, once begun, secession was a process which could onlyend in reducing America to a cluster of impotent petty sovereignties, torn by hostilities, incapable of any concerted action, a fair prey toany outside aggressor. 

However, he was also a believer in the paramount sovereignty of thestates. He was first of all a Virginian. So, when Virginia voted infavor of secession, Mosby, while he deplored the choice, felt that hehad no alternative but to accept it. He promptly enlisted in a locallyorganized cavalry company, the Washington Mounted Rifles, under aformer U. S. Officer and West Point graduate, William E. Jones. 

His letters to his wife told of his early military experiences--hispleasure at receiving one of the fine new Sharps carbines whichCaptain Jones had wangled for his company, and, later, a Colt . 44revolver: his first taste of fire in the Shenandoah Valley, where thecompany, now incorporated into Colonel Stuart's First VirginiaCavalry, were covering Johnston's march to re-enforce Beauregard: hisrather passive participation in the big battle at Manassas. He waskeenly disappointed at being held in reserve throughout the fighting. Long afterward, it was to be his expressed opinion that theConfederacy had lost the war by failing to follow the initial victoryand exploit the rout of McDowell's army. 

The remainder of 1861 saw him doing picket duty in Fairfax County. When Stuart was promoted to brigadier general, and Captain Jones tookhis place as colonel of the First Virginia, Mosby became the latter'sadjutant. There should have been a commission along with this post, but this seems to have been snarled in red tape at Richmond and nevercame through. It was about this time that Mosby first came to Stuart'spersonal attention. Mosby spent a night at headquarters afterescorting a couple of young ladies who had been living outside theConfederate lines and were anxious to reach relatives living farthersouth. 

Stuart had been quite favorably impressed with Mosby, and when, sometime later, the latter lost his place as adjutant of the First byreason of Jones' promotion to brigadier general and Fitzhugh Lee'staking over the regiment, Mosby became one of Stuart's headquartersscouts. 

Scouting for Jeb Stuart was not the easiest work in the world, nor thesafest, but Mosby appears to have enjoyed it, and certainly made goodat it. It was he who scouted the route for Stuart's celebrated "RideAround MacClellan" in June, 1862, an exploit which brought his name tothe favorable attention of General Lee. By this time, still withoutcommission, he was accepted at Stuart's headquarters as a sort ofcourtesy officer, and generally addressed as "Captain" Mosby. Stuartmade several efforts to get him commissioned, but War Department redtape seems to have blocked all of them. By this time, too, Mosby hadbecome convinced of the utter worthlessness of the saber as acavalryman's weapon, and for his own armament adopted a pair of Colts. 

The revolver of the Civil War was, of course, a percussion-cap weapon. Even with the powder and bullet contained in a combustible papercartridge, loading such an arm was a slow process: each bullet had tobe forced in the front of the chamber on top of its propellant chargeby means of a hinged rammer under the barrel, and a tiny copper caphad to be placed on each nipple. It was nothing to attempt on aprancing horse. The Union cavalryman was armed with a single-shotcarbine--the seven-shot Spencer repeater was not to make itsbattlefield appearance until late in 1863--and one revolver, givinghim a total of seven shots without reloading. With a pair ofsix-shooters, Mosby had a five-shot advantage over any opponent he waslikely to encounter. As he saw it, tactical strength lay in the numberof shots which could be delivered without reloading, rather than inthe number of men firing them. Once he reached a position ofindependent command, he was to adhere consistently to this principle. 

On July 14, 1862, General John Pope, who had taken over a newlycreated Union Army made up of the commands of McDowell, Banks andFremont, issued a bombastic and tactless order to his new command, making invidious comparisons between the armies in the west and thosein the east. He said, "I hear constantly of 'taking strong positionsand holding them, ' of 'lines of retreat, ' and of 'bases of supplies. 'Let us discard all such ideas. Let us study the probable lines ofretreat of our opponents, and leave our own to take care ofthemselves. "

That intrigued Mosby. If General Pope wasn't going to take care of hisown rear, somebody ought to do it for him, and who better than JohnMosby? He went promptly to Stuart, pointing out Pope's disinterest inhis own lines of supply and communication, and asked that he be givenabout twenty men and detailed to get into Pope's rear and see whatsort of disturbance he could create. 

Stuart doubted the propriety of sending men into what was thenStonewall Jackson's territory, but he gave Mosby a letter to Jackson, recommending the bearer highly and outlining what he proposed doing, with the request that he be given some men to try it. With thisletter, Mosby set out for Jackson's headquarters. 

He never reached his destination. On the way, he was taken prisoner bya raiding force of New York cavalry, and arrived, instead, at OldCapitol jail in Washington. Stuart requested his exchange at once, andMosby spent only about ten days in Old Capitol, and then was sent downthe Potomac on an exchange boat, along with a number of otherprisoners of war, for Hampton Roads. 

The boat-load of prisoners, about to be exchanged and returned totheir own army, were allowed to pass through a busy port of militaryembarkation and debarkation, with every opportunity to observeeverything that was going on, and, to make a bad matter worse, thesteamboat captain was himself a Confederate sympathizer. So whenMosby, from the exchange boat, observed a number of transports lyingat anchor, he had no trouble at all in learning that they carriedBurnside's men, newly brought north from the Carolinas. With the helpof the steamboat captain, Mosby was able to learn that the transportswere bound for Acquia Creek, on the Potomac; that meant that there-enforcements were for Pope. 

 * * * * *

As soon as he was exchanged, Mosby made all haste for Lee'sheadquarters to report what he had discovered. Lee, remembering Mosbyas the man who had scouted ahead of Stuart's Ride Around MacClellan, knew that he had a hot bit of information from a credible source. Adispatch rider was started off at once for Jackson, and Jackson struckPope at Cedar Mountain before he could be re-enforced. Mosby returnedto Stuart's headquarters, losing no time in promoting a pair of . 44'sto replace the ones lost when captured, and found his stock withStuart at an all-time high as a result of his recent feat of espionagewhile in the hands of the enemy. 

So he was with Stuart when Stuart stopped at Laura Ratcliffe's home, and was on hand when Stuart wanted to make one of his characteristicgestures of gallantry. And so he finally got his independentcommand--all of six men--and orders to operate in the enemy's rear. 

Whatever Stuart might have had in mind in leaving him behind "to lookafter the loyal Confederate people, " John Mosby had no intention ofposting himself in Laura Ratcliffe's front yard as a guard of honor. He had a theory of guerrilla warfare which he wanted to test. In part, it derived from his experiences in the Shenandoah Valley and inFairfax County, but in larger part, it was based upon his ownunderstanding of the fundamental nature of war. 

The majority of guerrilla leaders have always been severely tacticalin their thinking. That is to say, they have been concerned almostexclusively with immediate results. A troop column is ambushed, apicket post attacked, or a supply dump destroyed for the sake of theimmediate loss of personnel or materiel so inflicted upon the enemy. Mosby, however, had a well-conceived strategic theory. He knew, inview of the magnitude of the war, that the tactical effects of hisoperations would simply be lost in the over-all picture. But, if hecould create enough uproar in the Union rear, he believed that hecould force the withdrawal from the front of a regiment or even abrigade to guard against his attacks and, in some future battle, theabsence of that regiment or brigade might tip the scale of battle or, at least, make some future Confederate victory more complete or somedefeat less crushing. 

As soon as Stuart's column started southward, Mosby took his six menacross Bull Run Mountain to Middleburg, where he ordered them toscatter out, billet themselves at outlying farms, and meet him at theMiddleburg hotel on the night of January 10. Meanwhile he returnedalone to Fairfax County, spending the next week making contacts withthe people and gathering information. 

On the night of Saturday, January 10, he took his men through the gapat Aldie and into Fairfax County. His first stop was at a farmhousenear Herndon Station, where he had friends, and there he met awoodsman, trapper and market hunter named John Underwood, who, withhis two brothers, had been carrying on a private resistance movementagainst the Union occupation ever since the Confederate Army had movedout of the region. Overjoyed at the presence of regular Confederatetroops, even as few as a half-dozen, Underwood offered to guide Mosbyto a nearby Union picket post. 

Capturing this post was no particularly spectacular feat of arms. Mosby's party dismounted about 200 yards away from it and crept up onit, to find seven members of the Fifth New York squatting around afire, smoking, drinking coffee and trying to keep warm. Their firstintimation of the presence of any enemy nearer than the RappahannockRiver came when Mosby and his men sprang to their feet, leveledrevolvers and demanded their surrender. One cavalryman made a grab forhis carbine and Mosby shot him; the others put up their hands. Thewounded man was given first aid, wrapped in a blanket and placedbeside the fire to wait until the post would be relieved. The otherswere mounted on their own horses and taken to Middleburg, where theywere paroled i. E. , released after they gave their word not to take uparms again against the Confederacy. This not entirely satisfactoryhandling of prisoners was the only means left open to Mosby with hissmall force, behind enemy lines. 

The next night, Mosby stayed out of Fairfax County to allow theexcitement to die down a little, but the night after, he and his men, accompanied by Underwood, raided a post where the Little RiverTurnpike crossed Cub Run. Then, after picking up a two-man road patrolen route, they raided another post near Fryingpan Church. This timethey brought back fourteen prisoners and horses. 

In all, he and his sextet had captured nineteen prisoners and twentyhorses. But Mosby still wasn't satisfied. What he wanted was a fewmore men and orders to operate behind the Union army on a permanentbasis. So, after paroling the catch of the night before, he told JohnUnderwood to get busy gathering information and establishing contacts, and he took his six men back to Culpepper, reporting his activities toStuart and claiming that under his existing orders he had not feltjustified in staying away from the army longer. At the same time, heasked for a larger detail and orders to continue operating in northernVirginia. 

In doing so, he knew he was taking a chance that Stuart would keep himat Culpepper, but as both armies had gone into winter quarters afterFredericksburg with only a minimum of outpost activity, he reasonedthat Stuart would be willing to send him back. As it happened, Stuartwas so delighted with the success of Mosby's brief activity that hegave him fifteen men, all from the First Virginia Cavalry, and ordersto operate until recalled. On January 18, Mosby was back atMiddleburg, ready to go to work in earnest. 

As before, he scattered his men over the countryside, quartering themon the people. This time, before scattering them, he told them to meethim at Zion Church, just beyond the gap at Aldie, on the night of the28th. During the intervening ten days, he was not only busy gatheringinformation but also in an intensive recruiting campaign among thepeople of upper Fauquier and lower Loudoun Counties. 

 * * * * *

In this last, his best selling-point was a recent act of theConfederate States Congress called the Scott Partisan Ranger Law. Thispiece of legislation was, in effect, an extension of the principles ofprize law and privateering to land warfare. It authorized theformation of independent cavalry companies, to be considered part ofthe armed forces of the Confederacy, their members to serve withoutpay and mount themselves, in return for which they were to be entitledto keep any spoil of war captured from the enemy. The terms "enemy"and "spoil of war" were defined so liberally as to cover almostanything not the property of the government or citizens of theConfederacy. There were provisions, also, entitling partisan companiesto draw on the Confederate government for arms and ammunition andpermitting them to turn in and receive payment for any spoil whichthey did not wish to keep for themselves. 

The law had met with considerable opposition from the Confederatemilitary authorities, who claimed that it would attract men and horsesaway from the regular service and into ineffective freebooting. Thereis no doubt that a number of independent companies organized under theScott Law accomplished nothing of military value. Some degeneratedinto mere bandit gangs, full of deserters from both sides, andterrible only to the unfortunate Confederate citizens living withintheir range of operations. On the other hand, as Mosby was todemonstrate, a properly employed partisan company could be ofconsiderable use. 

It was the provision about booty, however, which appealed to Mosby. Ashe intended operating in the Union rear, where the richest plundercould be found, he hoped that the prospect would attract numerousrecruits. The countryside contained many men capable of bearing armswho had remained at home to look after their farms but who would bemore than willing to ride with him now and then in hope of securing anew horse for farm work, or some needed harness, or food and blanketsfor their families. The regular Mosby Men called them the"Conglomerates, " and Mosby himself once said that they resembled theDemocrat party, being "held together only by the cohesive power ofpublic plunder. "

Mosby's first operation with his new force was in the pattern of theother two--the stealthy dismounted approach and sudden surprise of anisolated picket post. He brought back eleven prisoners and twelvehorses and sets of small arms, and, as on the night of the 10th, leftone wounded enemy behind. As on the previous occasions, the prisonerswere taken as far as Middleburg before being released on parole. 

For this reason, Mosby was sure that Colonel Sir Percy Wyndham, commander of the brigade which included the Fifth New York, EighteenthPennsylvania and the First Vermont, would assume that this village wasthe raiders' headquarters. Colonel Wyndham, a European-trainedsoldier, would scarcely conceive of any military force, however small, without a regular headquarters and a fixed camp. Therefore, Wyndhamwould come looking for him at Middleburg. So, with a companion namedFountain Beattie, Mosby put up for what remained of the night at thehome of a Mr. Lorman Chancellor, on the road from Aldie a few mileseast of Middleburg. The rest of the company were ordered to stayoutside Middleburg. 

Mosby's estimate of his opponent was uncannily accurate. The nextmorning, about daybreak, he and Beattie were wakened by one of theChancellor servants and warned that a large body of Union cavalry wasapproaching up the road from Aldie. Peering through the windowshutters, they watched about 200 men of the Fifth New York ride by, with Colonel Wyndham himself in the lead. As soon as they were out ofsight up the road, Mosby and Beattie, who had hastily dressed, dasheddownstairs for their horses. 

"I'm going to keep an eye on these people, " Mosby told Beattie. "Gather up as many men as you can, and meet me in about half an houron the hill above Middleburg. But hurry! I'd rather have five men nowthan a hundred by noon. "

When Beattie with six men rejoined Mosby, he found the latter sittingon a stump, munching an apple and watching the enemy through his fieldglasses. Wyndham, who had been searching Middleburg for "Mosby'sheadquarters, " was just forming his men for a push on to Upperville, where he had been assured by the canny Middleburgers that Mosby hadhis camp. 

Mosby and his men cantered down the hillside to the road as Wyndham'sforce moved out of the village and then broke into a mad gallop toovertake them. 

 * * * * *

It was always hard to be sure whether jackets were dirty gray or fadedblue. As the Union soldier had a not unfounded belief that theVirginia woods were swarming with bushwhackers (Confederateguerillas), the haste of a few men left behind to rejoin the columnwas quite understandable. The rearguard pulled up and waited for them. Then, at about twenty yards' range, one of the New Yorkers, asergeant, realized what was happening and shouted a warning:

"They're Rebs!"

Instantly one of Mosby's men, Ned Hurst, shot him dead. Otherrevolvers, ready drawn, banged, and several Union cavalrymen werewounded. Mosby and his followers hastily snatched the bridles of threeothers, disarmed them and turned, galloping away with them. 

By this time, the main column, which had not halted with therearguard, was four or five hundred yards away. There was a briefuproar, a shouting of contradictory orders, and then the whole columnturned and came back at a gallop. Mosby, four of his men, and thethree prisoners, got away, but Beattie and two others were capturedwhen their horses fell on a sheet of ice treacherously hidden underthe snow. There was no possibility of rescuing them. After the captureof Beattie and his companions, the pursuit stopped. Halting at adistance, Mosby saw Wyndham form his force into a compact body andmove off toward Aldie at a brisk trot. He sent off the prisoners underguard of two of his men and followed Wyndham's retreat almost to Aldiewithout opportunity to inflict any more damage. 

During his stop at Middleburg, Wyndham had heaped coals on a growingopposition to Mosby, fostered by pro-Unionists in the neighborhood. Wyndham informed the townspeople that he would burn the town andimprison the citizens if Mosby continued the attacks on his outposts. A group of citizens, taking the threat to heart, petitioned Stuart torecall Mosby, but the general sent a stinging rebuke, telling theMiddleburgers that Mosby and his men were risking their lives whichwere worth considerably more than a few houses and barns. 

Mosby was also worried about the antipathy to the Scott Law and thepartisan ranger system which was growing among some of the generalofficers of the Confederacy. To counteract such opposition, he neededto achieve some spectacular feat of arms which would capture thepopular imagination, make a public hero of himself, and place himabove criticism. 

 * * * * *

And all the while, his force was growing. The booty from his raidsexcited the cupidity of the more venturesome farmers, and they wereexchanging the hoe for the revolver and joining him. A number of theconvalescents and furloughed soldiers were arranging transfers to hiscommand. Others, with no permanent military attachment, were driftingto Middleburg, Upperville, or Rectortown, inquiring where they mightfind Mosby, and making their way to join him. 

There was a young Irishman, Dick Moran. There was a Fauquier Countyblacksmith, Billy Hibbs, who reported armed with a huge broadswordwhich had been the last product of his forge. There were WalterFrankland, Joe Nelson, Frank Williams and George Whitescarver, amongthe first to join on a permanent basis. And, one day, there was thestrangest recruit of all. 

A meeting was held on the 25th of February at the Blackwell farm, nearUpperville, and Mosby and most of his men were in the kitchen of thefarmhouse, going over a map of the section they intended raiding, whena couple of men who had been on guard outside entered, pushing a Unioncavalry sergeant ahead of them. 

"This Yankee says he wants to see you, Captain, " one of the menannounced. "He came on foot; says his horse broke a leg and had to beshot. "

"Well, I'm Mosby, " the guerrilla leader said. "What do you want?"

The man in blue came to attention and saluted. 

"I've come here to join your company, sir, " he said calmly. 

There was an excited outburst from the men in the kitchen, but Mosbytook the announcement in stride. 

"And what's your name and unit, sergeant?"

"James F. Ames: late Fifth New York Cavalry, sir. "

After further conversation, Mosby decided that the big Yankee wassincere in his avowed decision to join the forces of the Confederacy. He had some doubts about his alleged motives: the man was animatedwith a most vindictive hatred of the Union government, all his formerofficers and most of his former comrades. No one ever learned whatinjury, real or fancied, had driven Sergeant Ames to desertion andtreason, but in a few minutes Mosby was sure that the man was throughwith the Union Army. 

Everybody else was equally sure that he was a spy, probably sent overby Wyndham to assassinate Mosby. Eventually Mosby proposed a test ofAmes' sincerity. The deserter should guide the company to a Unionpicket post, and should accompany the raiders unarmed: Mosby wouldride behind him, ready to shoot him at the first sign of treachery. The others agreed to judge the new recruit by his conduct on the raid. A fairly strong post, at a schoolhouse at Thompson's Corners, wasselected as the objective, and they set out, sixteen men beside Amesand Mosby, through a storm of rain and sleet. Stopping at a nearbyfarm, Mosby learned that the post had been heavily re-enforced sincehe had last raided it. There were now about a hundred men at theschoolhouse. 

Pleased at this evidence that his campaign to force the enemy toincrease his guard was bearing fruit, Mosby decided to abandon hiscustomary tactics of dismounting at a distance and approaching onfoot. On a night like this, the enemy would not be expecting him, sothe raiders advanced boldly along the road, Mosby telling Ames to makewhatever answer he thought would be believed in case they werechallenged. However, a couple of trigger-happy vedettes let off theircarbines at them, yelled, "The Rebs are coming!" and galloped for theschoolhouse. 

There was nothing to do but gallop after them, and Mosby and his bandcame pelting in on the heels of the vedettes. Hitherto, his raids hadbeen more or less bloodless, but this time he had a fight on hishands, and if the men in the schoolhouse had stayed inside anddefended themselves with carbine fire, they would have driven off theattack. Instead, however, they rushed outside, each man trying tomount his horse. A lieutenant and seven men were killed, about twicethat number wounded, and five prisoners were taken. The rest, believing themselves attacked by about twice their own strength, scattered into the woods and got away. 

Ames, who had ridden unarmed, flung himself upon a Union cavalryman atthe first collision and disarmed him, then threw himself into thefight with the captured saber. His conduct during the brief battle atthe schoolhouse was such as to remove from everybody's mind thesuspicion that his conversion to the Confederate cause was anythingbut genuine. Thereafter, he was accepted as a Mosby man. 

He was accepted by Mosby himself as a veritable godsend, since he wasacquainted with the location of every Union force in Fairfax County, and knew of a corridor by which it would be possible to penetrateWyndham's entire system of cavalry posts as far as Fairfax Courthouseitself. Here, then, was the making of the spectacular coup which Mosbyneeded to answer his critics and enemies, both at Middleburg and atarmy headquarters. He decided to attempt nothing less than a raid uponFairfax Courthouse, with the capture of Wyndham as its purpose. 

This last would entail something of a sacrifice, for he had come toesteem Sir Percy highly as an opponent whose mind was an open book andwhose every move could be predicted in advance. With Wyndhameliminated, he would have to go to the trouble of learning the mentalprocesses of his successor. 

However, Wyndham would be the ideal captive to grace a Mosby triumph, and a successful raid on Fairfax Courthouse, garrisoned as it was bybetween five and ten thousand Union troops, would not only secureMosby's position in his own army but would start just the sort of apanic which would result in demands that the Union rear be re-enforcedat the expense of the front. 

So, on Sunday, March 8, Mosby led thirty-nine men through the gap atAldie, the largest force that had followed him to date. It was thesort of a foul night that he liked for raiding, with a drizzling rainfalling upon melting snow. It was pitch dark before they found theroad between Centreville and Fairfax, along which a telegraph line hadbeen strung to connect the main cavalry camp with General Stoughton'sheadquarters. Mosby sent one of his men, Harry Hatcher, up a pole tocut the wire. They cut another telegraph line at Fairfax Station andleft the road, moving through the woods toward Fairfax Courthouse. Atthis time, only Mosby and Yank Ames knew the purpose of theexpedition. 

It was therefore with surprise and some consternation that the othersrealized where they were as they rode into the courthouse square andhalted. A buzz of excited whispers rose from the men. 

"That's right, " Mosby assured them calmly. "We're in FairfaxCourthouse, right in the middle of ten thousand Yankees, but don't letthat worry you. All but about a dozen of them are asleep. Now, if youall keep your heads and do what you're told, we'll be as safe asthough we were in Jeff Davis' front parlor. "

He then began giving instructions, detailing parties to round uphorses and capture any soldiers they found awake and moving about. Hewent, himself, with several men, to the home of a citizen namedMurray, where he had been told that Wyndham had quartered himself, buthere he received the disappointing news that the Englishman had goneto Washington that afternoon. 

A few minutes later, however, Joe Nelson came up with a prisoner, aninfantryman who had just been relieved from sentry duty at GeneralStoughton's headquarters, who said that there had been a party thereearlier in the evening and that Stoughton and several other officerswere still there. Mosby, still disappointed at his failure to secureWyndham, decided to accept Stoughton in his place. Taking several men, he went at once to the house where the prisoner said Stoughton had hisheadquarters. 

 * * * * *

Arriving there, he hammered loudly on the door with a revolver butt. An upstairs window opened, and a head, in a nightcap, was thrust out. 

"What the devil's all the noise about?" its owner demanded. "Don't youknow this is General Stoughton's headquarters?"

"I'd hoped it was; I almost killed a horse getting here, " Mosbyretorted. "Come down and open up; dispatches from Washington. "

In a few moments, a light appeared inside on the first floor, and thedoor opened. A man in a nightshirt, holding a candle, stood in thedoorway. 

"I'm Lieutenant Prentiss, on General Stoughton's staff. The general'sasleep. If you'll give me the dispatches . .. "

Mosby caught the man by the throat with his left hand and shoved aColt into his face with his right. Dan Thomas, beside him, lifted thecandle out of the other man's hand. 

"And I'm Captain Mosby, General Stuart's staff. We've just takenFairfax Courthouse. Inside, now, and take me to the general at once. "

The general was in bed, lying on his face in a tangle of bedclothes. Mosby pulled the sheets off of him, lifted the tail of his nightshirtand slapped him across the bare rump. 

The effect was electric. Stoughton sat up in bed, gobbling in fury. Inthe dim candlelight, he mistook the gray of Mosby's tunic for blue, and began a string of bloodthirsty threats of court-martial and firingsquad, interspersed with oaths. 

"Easy, now, General, " the perpetrator of the outrage soothed. "You'veheard of John Mosby, haven't you?"

"Yes; have you captured him?" In the face of such tidings, Stoughtonwould gladly forget the assault on his person. 

Mosby shook his head, smiling seraphically. "No, General. He'scaptured you. I'm Mosby. "

"Oh my God!" Stoughton sank back on the pillow and closed his eyes, overcome. 

Knowing the precarious nature of his present advantage, Mosby thenundertook to deprive Stoughton of any hope of rescue or will toresist. 

"Stuart's cavalry is occupying Fairfax Courthouse, " he invented, "andStonewall Jackson's at Chantilly with his whole force. We're allmoving to occupy Alexandria by morning. You'll have to hurry anddress, General. "

"Is Fitzhugh Lee here?" Stoughton asked. "He's a friend of mine; wewere classmates at West Point. "

"Why, no; he's with Jackson at Chantilly. Do you want me to take youto him? I can do so easily if you hurry. "

It does not appear that Stoughton doubted as much as one syllable ofthis remarkable set of prevarications. The Union Army had learned bybitter experience that Stonewall Jackson was capable of materializingalmost anywhere. So he climbed out of bed, putting on his clothes. 

 * * * * *

On the way back to the courthouse square, Prentiss got away from themin the darkness, but Mosby kept a tight hold on Stoughton's bridle. Bythis time, the suspicion that all was not well in the county seat hadbegun to filter about. Men were beginning to turn out under arms allover town, and there was a confusion of challenges and replies andsome occasional firing as hastily wakened soldiers mistook one anotherfor the enemy. Mosby got his prisoners and horses together and startedout of town as quickly as he could. 

The withdrawal was made over much the same route as the approach, without serious incident. Thanks to the precaution of cutting thetelegraph wires, the camp at Centreville knew nothing of what hadhappened at Fairfax Courthouse until long after the raiders weresafely away. They lost all but thirty of the prisoners--in the woodsoutside Fairfax Courthouse, they escaped in droves--but they broughtStoughton and the two captains out safely. 

The results were everything Mosby had hoped. He became a Confederatehero over night, and there was no longer any danger of his beingrecalled. There were several half-hearted attempts to kick himupstairs--an offer of a commission in the now defunct VirginiaProvisional Army, which he rejected scornfully, and a similar offer inthe regular Confederate States Army, which he politely declinedbecause it would deprive his men of their right to booty under theScott Law. Finally he was given a majority in the Confederate StatesArmy, with authorization to organize a partisan battalion under theScott Law. This he accepted, becoming Major Mosby of the Forty-ThirdVirginia Partisan Ranger Battalion. 

The effect upon the enemy was no less satisfactory. When fullparticulars of the Fairfax raid reached Washington, Wyndham vanishedfrom the picture, being assigned to other duties where less dependedupon him. There was a whole epidemic of courts-martial and inquiries, some of which were still smouldering when the war ended. AndStoughton, the principal victim, found scant sympathy. PresidentLincoln, when told that the rebels had raided Fairfax to the tune ofone general, two captains, thirty men and fifty-eight horses, remarkedthat he could make all the generals he wanted, but that he was sorryto lose the horses, as he couldn't make horses. As yet, there was novisible re-enforcement of the cavalry in Fairfax County from thefront, but the line of picket posts was noticeably shortened. 

About two weeks later, with forty men, Mosby raided a post at HerndonStation, bringing off a major, a captain, two lieutenants andtwenty-one men, with a horse apiece. A week later, with fifty-odd men, he cut up about three times his strength of Union cavalry atChantilly. Having surprised a small party, he had driven them into amuch larger force, and the hunted had turned to hunt the hunters. Fighting a delaying action with a few men while the bulk of his forcefell back on an old roadblock of felled trees dating from the secondManassas campaign, he held off the enemy until he was sure hisambuscade was set, then, by feigning headlong flight, led them into atrap and chased the survivors for five or six miles. Wyndham andStoughton had found Mosby an annoying nuisance; their successors werefinding him a serious menace. 

This attitude was not confined to the local level, but extended allthe way to the top echelons. The word passed down, "Get Mosby!" and itwas understood that the officer responsible for his elimination wouldfind his military career made for him. One of the Union officers whosaw visions of rapid advancement over the wreckage of Mosby's Rangerswas a captain of the First Vermont, Josiah Flint by name. He was soonto have a chance at it. 

On March 31, Mosby's Rangers met at Middleburg and moved across themountain to Chantilly, expecting to take a strong outpost which hadbeen located there. On arriving, they found the campsite deserted. Thepost had been pulled back closer to Fairfax after the fight of fourdays before. Mosby decided to move up to the Potomac and attack aUnion force on the other side of Dranesville--Captain Josiah Flint'sVermonters. 

They passed the night at John Miskel's farm, near Chantilly. Thefollowing morning, April 1, at about daybreak, Mosby was wakened byone of his men who had been sleeping in the barn. This man, havinggone outside, had observed a small party of Union troops on theMaryland side of the river who were making semaphore signals tosomebody on the Virginia side. Mosby ordered everybody to turn out asquickly as possible and went out to watch the signalmen with his fieldglasses. While he was watching, Dick Moran, a Mosby man who hadbilleted with friends down the road, arrived at a breakneck gallopfrom across the fields, shouting: "Mount your horses! The Yankees arecoming!"

It appeared that he had been wakened, shortly before, by the noise ofa column of cavalry on the road in front of the house where he hadbeen sleeping, and had seen a strong force of Union cavalry on themarch in the direction of Broad Run and the Miskel farm. Waiting untilthey had passed, he had gotten his horse and circled at a gallopthrough the woods, reaching the farm just ahead of them. It laterdeveloped that a woman of the neighborhood, whose head had been turnedby the attentions of Union officers, had betrayed Mosby to Flint. 

The Miskel farmhouse stood on the crest of a low hill, facing theriver. Behind it stood the big barn, with a large barnyard enclosed bya high pole fence. As this was a horse farm, all the fences were eightfeet high and quite strongly built. A lane ran down the slope of thehill between two such fences, and at the southern end of the slopeanother fence separated the meadows from a belt of woods, beyond whichwas the road from Dranesville, along which Flint's column wasadvancing. 

 * * * * *

It was a nasty spot for Mosby. He had between fifty and sixty men, newly roused from sleep, their horses unsaddled, and he was penned inby strong fences which would have to be breached if he were to escape. His only hope lay in a prompt counterattack. The men who had come outof the house and barn were frantically saddling horses, without muchattention to whose saddle went on whose mount. Harry Hatcher, who hadgotten his horse saddled, gave it to Mosby and appropriated somebodyelse's mount. 

As Flint, at the head of his cavalry, emerged from the woods, Mosbyhad about twenty of his men mounted and was ready to receive him. TheUnion cavalry paused, somebody pulled out the gate bars at the foot ofthe lane, and the whole force started up toward the farm. Havingopened the barnyard end of the lane, Mosby waited until Flint had comeabout halfway, then gave him a blast of revolver fire and followedthis with a headlong charge down the lane. Flint was killed at thefirst salvo, as were several of the men behind him. By the timeMosby's charge rammed into the head of the Union attack, the narrowlane was blocked with riderless horses, preventing each force fromcoming to grips with the other. Here Mosby's insistence upon at leasttwo revolvers for each man paid off, as did the target practice uponwhich he was always willing to expend precious ammunition. The Unioncolumn, constricted by the fences on either side of the lane andshaken by the death of their leader and by the savage attack of menwhom they had believed hopelessly trapped, turned and tried toretreat, but when they reached the foot of the lane it was discoveredthat some fool, probably meaning to deny Mosby an avenue of escape, had replaced the gatebars. By this time, the rest of Mosby's force hadmounted their horses, breaches had been torn in the fence at eitherside of the lane, and there were Confederates in both meadows, firinginto the trapped men. Until the gate at the lower end gave way underthe weight of horses crowded against it, there was a bloody slaughter. Within a few minutes Flint and nine of his men were killed, somefifteen more were given disabling wounds, eighty-two prisoners weretaken, and over a hundred horses and large quantities of arms andammunition were captured. The remains of Flint's force was chased asfar as Dranesville. Mosby was still getting the prisoners sorted out, rounding up loose horses, gathering weapons and ammunition fromcasualties, and giving the wounded first aid, when a Union lieutenantrode up under a flag of truce, followed by several enlisted men andtwo civilians of the Sanitary Commission, the Civil War equivalent ofthe Red Cross, to pick up the wounded and bury the dead. This officeroffered to care for Mosby's wounded with his own, an offer which wasdeclined with thanks. Mosby said he would carry his casualties withhim, and the Union officer could scarcely believe his eyes when he sawonly three wounded men on horse litters and one dead man tied to hissaddle. 

The sutlers at Dranesville had heard the firing and were about to moveaway when Mosby's column appeared. Seeing the preponderance of blueuniforms, they mistook the victors for prisoners and, anticipating alively and profitable business, unpacked their loads and set up theircounters. The business was lively, but anything but profitable. TheMosby men looted them unmercifully, taking their money, their horses, and everything else they had. 

 * * * * *

All through the spring of 1863, Mosby kept jabbing at Union lines ofcommunication in northern Virginia. In June, his majority camethrough, and with it authority to organize a battalion under the ScottLaw. From that time on, he was on his own, and there was no longer anydanger of his being recalled to the regular Army. He was responsibleonly to Jeb Stuart until the general's death at Yellow Tavern a yearlater; thereafter, he took orders from no source below General Lee andthe Secretary of War. 

Even before this regularization of status, Mosby's force was beginningto look like a regular outfit. From the fifteen men he had brought upfrom Culpepper in mid-January, its effective and dependable strengthhad grown to about sixty riders, augmented from raid to raid by the"Conglomerate" fringe, who were now accepted as guerrillas-pro-temwithout too much enthusiasm. A new type of recruit had begun toappear, the man who came to enlist on a permanent basis. Some wereMaryland secessionists, like James Williamson, who, after the war, wrote an authoritative and well-documented history of theorganization, Mosby's Rangers. Some were boys like John Edmonds andJohn Munson, who had come of something approaching military age sincethe outbreak of the war. Some were men who had wangled transfers fromother Confederate units. Not infrequently these men had given upcommissions in the regular army to enlist as privates with Mosby. Forexample, there was the former clergyman, Sam Chapman, who had been acaptain of artillery, or the Prussian uhlan lieutenant, Baron Robertvon Massow, who gave up a captaincy on Stuart's staff, or theEnglishman, Captain Hoskins, who was shortly to lose his life becauseof his preference for the saber over the revolver, or Captain BillKennon, late of Wheat's Louisiana Tigers, who had also served withWalker in Nicaragua. As a general thing, the new Mosby recruit was aman of high intelligence, reckless bravery and ultra-ruggedindividualism. 

For his home territory, Mosby now chose a rough quadrangle between theBlue Ridge and Bull Run Mountain, bounded at its four corners bySnicker's Gap and Manassas Gap along the former and Thoroughfare Gapand Aldie Gap along the latter. Here, when not in action, the Mosbymen billeted themselves, keeping widely dispersed, and an elaboratesystem, involving most of the inhabitants, free or slave, was set upto transmit messages, orders and warnings. In time this district cameto be known as "Mosby's Confederacy, " and, in the absence of anyeffective Confederate States civil authority, Mosby became thelawgiver and chief magistrate as well as military commander. JohnMunson, who also wrote a book of reminiscences after the war, saidthat Mosby's Confederacy was an absolute monarchy, and that none wasever better governed in history. 

Adhering to his belief in the paramount importance of firepower, Mosbysaw to it that none of his men carried fewer than two revolvers, andthe great majority carried four, one pair on the belt and another onthe saddle. Some extremists even carried a third pair down theirboot-tops, giving them thirty-six shots without reloading. Nor did heunderestimate the power of mobility. Each man had his string ofhorses, kept where they could be picked up at need. Unlike the regularcavalryman with his one mount, a Mosby man had only to drop anexhausted animal at one of these private remount stations and changehis saddle to a fresh one. As a result of these two practices, Unioncombat reports throughout the war consistently credited Mosby withfrom three to five times his actual strength. 

In time, the entire economy of Mosby's Confederacy came to be gearedto Mosby's operations, just as the inhabitants of seventeenth centuryTortugas or Port Royal depended for their livelihood on the loot ofthe buccaneers. The Mosby man who lived with some farmer's family paidfor his lodging with gifts of foodstuffs and blankets looted from theenemy. There was always a brisk trade in captured U. S. Army horsesand mules. And there was a steady flow of United States currency intothe section, so that in time Confederate money was driven out ofcirculation in a sort of reversal of Gresham's law. Every prisonertaken reasonably close to Army pay day could be counted on for a fewdollars, and in each company there would be some lucky or skillfulgambler who would have a fairly sizeable roll of greenbacks. And, ofcourse, there was the sutler, the real prize catch; any Mosby manwould pass up a general in order to capture a sutler. 

And Northern-manufactured goods filtered south by the wagonload. Manyof the Mosby men wore Confederate uniforms that had been tailored forthem in Baltimore and even in Washington and run through the Unionlines. 

By mid-June, Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania had begun and thecountryside along Bull Run Mountain and the Blue Ridge exploded into aseries of cavalry actions as the Confederate Army moved north alongthe Union right. Mosby kept his little force out of the main fighting, hacking away at the Union troops from behind and confusing theircombat intelligence with reports of Rebel cavalry appearing where noneought to be. In the midst of this work, he took time out to dashacross into Fairfax County with sixty men, shooting up a wagon train, burning wagons, and carrying off prisoners and mules, the latter beingturned over to haul Lee's invasion transport. After the two armies hadpassed over the Potomac, he gathered his force and launched aninvasion of Pennsylvania on his own, getting as far as Mercersburg andbringing home a drove of over 200 beef cattle. 

He got back to Mosby's Confederacy in time to learn of Lee's defeat atGettysburg. Realizing that Lee's retreat would be followed by apursuing Union army, he began making preparations to withstand thecoming deluge. For one thing, he decided to do something he had notdone before--concentrate his force in a single camp on the top of BullRun Mountain. In the days while Lee's army was trudging southward, Mosby gathered every horse and mule and cow he could find and drovethem into the mountains, putting boys and slaves to work herding them. He commandeered wagons, and hauled grain and hay to his temporarycamp. His men erected huts, and built corrals for horses and astockade for prisoners. They even moved a blacksmith shop to thehidden camp. Then Mosby sat down and waited. 

A few days later, Meade's army began coming through. The Forty-ThirdPartisan Ranger Battalion went to work immediately. For two weeks, they galloped in and out among the Union columns, returning to theirhidden camp only long enough to change horses and leave the prisonersthey had taken. They cut into wagon trains, scattering cavalryescorts, burning wagons, destroying supplies, blowing up ammunition, disabling cannon, running off mules. They ambushed marching infantry, flitting away before their victims had recovered from the initialsurprise. Sometimes, fleeing from the scene of one attack, they wouldburst through a column on another road, leaving confusion behind todelay the pursuit. 

Finally, the invaders passed on, the camp on the mountain top wasabandoned, the Mosby men went back to their old billets, and theForty-Third Battalion could take it easy again. That is to say, theyonly made a raid every couple of days and seldom fought a pitchedbattle more than once a week. 

The summer passed; the Virginia hills turned from green to red andfrom red to brown. Mosby was severely wounded in the side and thighduring a fight at Gooding's Tavern on August 23, when two of his menwere killed, but the raiders brought off eighty-five horses and twelveprisoners and left six enemy dead behind. The old days of bloodlesssneak raids on isolated picket posts were past, now that they hadenough men for two companies and Mosby rarely took the field withfewer than a hundred riders behind him. 

Back in the saddle again after recovering from his wounds, Mosbydevoted more attention to attacking the Orange and Alexandria and theManassas Gap railroads and to harassing attacks for the rest of thewinter. 

In January, 1864, Major Cole, of the Union Maryland cavalry, begangoing out of his way to collide with the Forty-Third Virginia, themore so since he had secured the services of a deserter from Mosby, aman named Binns who had been expelled from the Rangers for some pieceof rascality and was thirsting for revenge. Cole hoped to capitalizeon Binns' defection as Mosby had upon the desertion of Sergeant Ames, and he made several raids into Mosby's Confederacy, taking a number ofprisoners before the Mosby men learned the facts of the situation andeverybody found a new lodging place. 

On the morning of February 20, Mosby was having breakfast at afarmhouse near Piedmont Depot, on the Manassas Gap Railroad, alongwith John Munson and John Edmonds, the 'teen-age terrors, and agunsmith named Jake Lavender, who was the battalion ordnance sergeantand engaged to young Edmonds' sister. Edmonds had with him a couple ofSharps carbines he had repaired for other members of the battalion andwas carrying to return to the owners. Suddenly John Edmonds' youngerbrother, Jimmy, burst into the room with the news that several hundredUnion cavalrymen were approaching. Lavender grabbed the two carbines, for which he had a quantity of ammunition, and they all ran outside. 

Sending the younger Edmonds boy to bring re-enforcements, Mosby, accompanied by John Edmonds, Munson, and Jake Lavender, started tofollow the enemy. He and Munson each took one of Lavender's carbinesand opened fire on them, Munson killing a horse and Mosby a man. Thatstarted things off properly. Cole's Marylanders turned and gave chase, and Mosby led them toward the rendezvous with Jimmy Edmonds and there-enforcements. Everybody arrived together, Mosby's party, thepursuers, and the re-enforcements, and a running fight ensued, withCole's men running ahead. This mounted chase, in the best horse-operamanner, came thundering down a road past a schoolhouse just as thepupils were being let out for recess. One of these, a 14-year-old boynamed Cabell Maddox, jumped onto the pony on which he had ridden toschool and joined in the pursuit, armed only with a McGuffy's ThirdReader. Overtaking a fleeing Yank, he aimed the book at him anddemanded his surrender; before the flustered soldier realized that hiscaptor was unarmed, the boy had snatched the Colt from his belt andwas covering him in earnest. This marked the suspension, for theduration of hostilities, of young Maddox's formal education. From thathour on he was a Mosby man, and he served with distinction to the endof the war. 

 * * * * *

The chase broke off, finally, when the pursuers halted to get theirprisoners and captured horses together. Then they discovered that oneof their number, a man named Cobb, had been killed. Putting the deadman across his saddle, they carried the body back to Piedmont, and thenext day assembled there for the funeral. The services had not yetstarted, and Mosby was finishing writing a report to Stuart on theprevious day's action, when a scout came pelting in to report Unioncavalry in the vicinity of Middleburg. 

Leaving the funeral in the hands of the preacher and the civilianmourners, Mosby and the 150 men who had assembled mounted and startedoff. Sam Chapman, the ex-artillery captain, who had worked up from theranks to a lieutenancy with Mosby, was left in charge of the mainforce, while Mosby and a small party galloped ahead to reconnoiter. The enemy, they discovered, were not Cole's men but a Californiabattalion. They learned that this force had turned in the direction ofLeesburg, and that they were accompanied by the deserter, Binns. 

Mosby made up his mind to ambush the Californians on their way back totheir camp at Vienna. He had plans, involving a length of rope, forhis former trooper, Binns. The next morning, having crossed Bull RunMountain the night before, he took up a position near Dranesville, with scouts out to the west. When the enemy were finally reportedapproaching, he was ready for them. Twenty of his 150, with carbinesand rifles, were dismounted and placed in the center, underLieutenant Mountjoy. The rest of the force was divided into two equalsections, under Chapman and Frank Williams, and kept mounted on theflanks. Mosby himself took his place with Williams on the right. Whilethey waited, they could hear the faint boom of cannon from Washington, firing salutes in honor of Washington's Birthday. 

A couple of men, posted in advance, acted as decoys, and the Unioncavalry, returning empty-handed from their raid, started after them inhopes of bringing home at least something to show for their efforts. Before they knew it, they were within range of Mountjoy's concealedriflemen. While they were still in disorder from the surprise volley, the two mounted sections swept in on them in a blaze of revolver fire, and they broke and fled. There was a nasty jam in a section of fencedroad, with mounted Mosby men in the woods on either side andMountjoy's rifles behind them. Before they could get clear of this, they lost fifteen killed, fifteen more wounded, and over seventyprisoners, and the victorious Mosby men brought home over a hundredcaptured horses and large quantities of arms and ammunition. To theirdeep regret, however, Binns was not to be found either among thecasualties or the prisoners. As soon as he had seen how the fight wasgoing, the deserter had spurred off northward, never to appear inVirginia again. Mosby's own loss had been one man killed and fourwounded. 

 * * * * *

For the rest of the spring, operations were routine--attacks on wagontrains and train wrecking and bridge burning on the railroads. Withthe cut-and-try shifting of command of the Union Army of the Potomacover and Grant in command, there was activity all over northernVirginia. About this time, Mosby got hold of a second twelve-poundhowitzer, and, later, a twelve-pound Napoleon and added the ShenandoahValley to his field of operations. 

From then on, Mosby was fighting a war on two fronts, dividing hisattention between the valley and the country to the east of Bull RunMountain, his men using their spare horses freely to keep the Unionrear on both sides in an uproar. The enemy, knowing the section fromwhence Mosby was operating, resorted to frequent counter-raiding. Often, returning from a raid, the Mosby men would find their hometerritory invaded and would have to intercept or fight off theinvaders. At this time, Mosby was giving top priority to attacks onUnion transport whether on the roads or the railroads. Wagon trainswere in constant movement, both moving up the Shenandoah Valley andbound for the Army of the Potomac, in front of Petersburg. To the eastwas the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, to the south, across the endof Mosby's Confederacy, was the Manassas Gap, and at the upper end ofthe valley was the B. & O. The section of the Manassas Gap Railroadalong the southern boundary of Mosby's Confederacy came in for specialattention, and the Union Army finally gave it up for a bad job andabandoned it. This writer's grandfather, Captain H. B. Piper, of theEleventh Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, did a stint of duty guardingit, and until he died he spoke with respect of the abilities of JohnS. Mosby and his raiders. Locomotives were knocked out with one oranother of Mosby's twelve-pounders. Track was torn up and bridges wereburned. Land-mines were planted. Trains were derailed and looted, usually with sharp fighting. 

By mid-July, Mosby had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and had atotal strength of around 300 men, divided into five companies. Hisyounger brother, William Mosby, had joined him and was acting as hisadjutant. He now had four guns, all twelve-pounders--two howitzers, the Napoleon and a new rifle, presented to him by Jubal Early. He hada compact, well-disciplined and powerful army-in-miniature. After theUnion defeat at Kernstown, Early moved back to the lower end of theShenandoah Valley, and McCausland went off on his raid in toPennsylvania, burning Chambersburg in retaliation for Hunter'sburnings at Lexington and Buchanan in Virginia. Following hiscustomary practice, Mosby made a crossing at another point and raidedinto Maryland as far as Adamstown, skirmishing and picking up a fewprisoners and horses. 

Early's invasion of Maryland, followed as it was by McCausland's sackof Chambersburg, was simply too much for the Union command. TheShenandoah situation had to be cleaned up immediately, and, after sometop-echelon dickering, Grant picked Phil Sheridan to do the cleaning. On August 7, Sheridan assumed command of the heterogeneous Unionforces in the Shenandoah and began welding them into an army. On the10th, he started south after Early, and Mosby, who generally had agood idea of what was going on at Union headquarters, took a smallparty into the valley, intending to kidnap the new commander as he hadStoughton. Due mainly to the vigilance of a camp sentry, the planfailed, but Mosby picked up the news that a large wagon train wasbeing sent up the valley, and he decided to have a try at this. 

On the evening of the 12th, he was back in the valley with 330 men andhis two howitzers. Spending the night at a plantation on the rightbank of the Shenandoah River, he was on the move before daybreak, crossing the river and pushing toward Berryville, with scouts probingahead in the heavy fog. One of the howitzers broke a wheel and waspushed into the brush and left behind. As both pieces were of the samecaliber, the caisson was taken along. A lieutenant and fifteen men, scouting ahead, discovered a small empty wagon train, going down thevalley in the direction of Harper's Ferry, and they were about toattack it when they heard, in the distance, the rumbling of manyheavily loaded wagons. This was the real thing. They forgot about theempty wagons and hastened back to Mosby and the main force to report. 

Swinging to the left to avoid premature contact with the train, Mosbyhurried his column in the direction of Berryville. On the way, hefound a disabled wagon, part of the north-bound empty train, with theteamster and several infantrymen sleeping in it. These were promptlysecured, and questioning elicited the information that the south-boundtrain consisted of 150 wagons, escorted by 250 cavalry and a brigadeof infantry. Getting into position on a low hill overlooking the roada little to the east of Berryville, the howitzer was unlimbered andthe force was divided on either side of it, Captain Adolphus Richardstaking the left wing and Sam Chapman the right. Mosby himself remainedwith the gun. Action was to be commenced with the gun, and the thirdshot was to be the signal for both Richards and Chapman to charge. 

 * * * * *

At just the right moment, the fog lifted. The gun was quickly laid onthe wagon train and fired, the first shot beheading a mule. The secondshell hit the best sort of target imaginable--a mobile farrier'sforge. There was a deadly shower of horseshoes, hand-tools andassorted ironmongery, inflicting casualties and causing a local panic. The third shell landed among some cavalry who were galloping up, scattering them, and, on the signal, Richards and Chapman chargedsimultaneously. 

Some infantry at the head of the train met Richards with a volley, costing him one man killed and several wounded and driving his chargeoff at an angle into the middle of the train. The howitzer, in turn, broke up the infantry. Chapman, who had hit the rear of the train, washaving easier going: his men methodically dragged the teamsters fromtheir wagons, unhitched mules, overturned, looted and burned wagons. The bulk of the escort, including the infantry, were at the front ofthe train, with Richards' men between them and Chapman. Richards, while he had his hands full with these, was not neglecting the wagons, either, though he was making less of a ceremony of it. A teamster wasshot and dragged from his wagon-seat, a lighted bundle of inflammablestossed into the wagon, and pistols were fired around the mules' headsto start them running. The faster they ran, the more the flames behindthem were fanned, and as the wagon went careening down the road, otherwagons were ignited by it. 

By 8 a. M. , the whole thing was over. The escort had been scattered, the wagons were destroyed, and the victors moved off, in possession of500-odd mules, thirty-six horses, about 200 head of beef cattle, 208prisoners, four Negro slaves who had been forcibly emancipated todrive Army wagons, and large quantities of supplies. In one of thewagons, a number of violins, probably equipment for some prototype ofthe U. S. O. , were found; the more musically inclined guerrillasappropriated these and enlivened the homeward march with music. 

 * * * * *

Of course, there was jubilation all over Mosby's Confederacy on theirreturn. The mules were herded into the mountains, held for about aweek, and then started off for Early's army. The beef herd was dividedamong the people, and there were barbecues and feasts. A shadow wascast over the spirits of the raiders, however, when the prisonersinformed them, with considerable glee, that the train had beencarrying upwards of a million dollars, the pay for Sheridan's army. Even allowing for exaggeration, the fact that they had overlooked thistreasure was a bitter pill for the Mosbyites. According to localtradition, however, the fortune was not lost completely; there werestories of a Berryville family who had been quite poor before the warbut who blossomed into unexplained affluence afterward. 

Less than a week later, on August 19, Mosby was in the valley againwith 250 men, dividing his force into several parties after crossingthe river at Castleman's Ford. Richards, with "B" Company, set offtoward Charlestown. Mosby himself took "A" toward Harper's Ferry on anuneventful trip during which the only enemies he encountered were acouple of stragglers caught pillaging a springhouse. It was Chapman, with "C" and "D, " who saw the action on this occasion. 

Going to the vicinity of Berryville, he came to a burning farmhouse, and learned that it had been fired only a few minutes before by someof Custer's cavalry. Leaving a couple of men to help the familycontrol the fire and salvage their possessions, he pressed on rapidly. Here was the thing every Mosby man had been hoping for--a chance tocatch house burners at work. They passed a second blazing house andbarn, dropping off a couple more men to help fight fire, and caught upwith the incendiaries, a company of Custer's men, just as they weresetting fire to a third house. Some of these, knowing the quality ofmercy they might expect from Mosby men, made off immediately at agallop. About ninety of them, however, tried to form ranks and put upa fight. The fight speedily became a massacre. Charging with shouts of"No quarters!", Chapman's men drove them into a maze of stone fencesand killed about a third of them before the rest were able toextricate themselves. 

This didn't stop the house burnings, by any means. The devastation ofthe Shenandoah Valley had been decided upon as a matter of strategy, and Sheridan was going through with it. The men who were ordered to dothe actual work did not have their morale improved any by theknowledge that Mosby's Rangers were refusing quarter to incendiarydetails, however, and, coming as it did on the heels of the wagontrain affair of the 13th, Sheridan was convinced that somethingdrastic would have to be done about Mosby. Accordingly, he set up aspecial company, under a Captain William Blazer, each man armed with apair of revolvers and a Spencer repeater, to devote their entireefforts to eliminating Mosby and his organized raiders. 

On September 3, this company caught up with Joe Nelson and about 100men in the valley and gave them a sound drubbing, the first that theMosby men had experienced for some time. It was a humiliating defeatfor them, and, on the other side, it was hailed as the beginning ofthe end of the Mosby nuisance. A few days later, while raiding to theeast of Bull Run Mountain, Mosby was wounded again, and was taken toLynchburg. He was joined by his wife, who remained with him atLynchburg and at Mosby's Confederacy until the end of the war. 

During his absence, the outfit seems to have been run by a sort ofpresidium of the senior officers. On September 22, Sam Chapman took120 men into the valley to try to capture a cavalry post supposed tobe located near Front Royal, but, arriving there, he learned that hisinformation had been incorrect and that no such post existed. Campingin the woods, he sent some men out as scouts, and the next morningthey reported a small wagon train escorted by about 150 cavalry, moving toward Front Royal. Dividing his force and putting half of itunder Walter Frankland, he planned to attack the train from the rearwhile Frankland hit it from in front. After getting into position, hekept his men concealed, waiting for the wagons to pass, and as it did, he realized that his scouts had seen only a small part of it. Theescort looked to him like about three regiments. Ordering his men toslip away as quietly as possible, he hurried to reach Frankland. 

"Turn around, Walter!" he yelled. "Get your men out of here! You'reattacking a whole brigade!"

"What of it?" Frankland replied. "Why, Sam, we have the bastards onthe run already!"

Chapman, the erstwhile clergyman, turned loose a blast of theologicallanguage in purely secular connotation. Frankland, amazed at thisblasphemous clamor from his usually pious comrade, realized that itmust have been inspired by something more than a little serious, andbegan ordering his men to fall back. Before they had all gotten away, two of the three Union regiments accompanying the wagons camegalloping up and swamped them. Most of the men got away but six ofthem, Anderson, Carter, Overby, Love, Rhodes and Jones, were captured. 

Late that night some of the stragglers, making their way back toMosby's Confederacy on foot, reported the fate of these six men. Theyhad been taken into Front Royal, and there, at the personal order ofGeneral George A. Custer, and under circumstances of extremebrutality, they had all been hanged. Rhodes' mother, who lived inFront Royal, had been forced to witness the hanging of her son. 

To put it conservatively, there was considerable excitement in Mosby'sConfederacy when the news of this atrocity was received. The seniorofficers managed to restore a measure of calmness, however, and it wasdecided to wait until Mosby returned before taking any action on thematter. 

In addition to the hangings at Front Royal, Custer was acquiring a badreputation because of his general brutality to the people of theShenandoah Valley. After the battle of the Little Bighorn, SittingBull would have probably won any popularity contest in northernVirginia without serious competition. 

On September 29, Mosby was back with his command; his wound had notbeen as serious as it might have been for the bullet had expended mostof its force against the butt of one of the revolvers in his belt. Operations against the railroads had been allowed to slacken duringMosby's absence; now they were stepped up again. Track was repeatedlytorn up along the Manassas Gap line, and there were attacks on campsand strong points, and continual harassing of wood-cutting partiesobtaining fuel for the locomotives. The artillery was taken out, andtrains were shelled. All this, of course, occasioned a fresh wave ofUnion raids into the home territory of the raiders, during one ofwhich Yank Ames, who had risen to a lieutenancy in the Forty-Third, was killed. 

The most desperate efforts were being made, at this time, to keep theManassas Gap Railroad open, and General C. C. Augur, who had charge ofthe railroad line at the time, was arresting citizens indiscriminatelyand forcing them to ride on the trains as hostages. Mosby obtainedauthorization from Lee's headquarters to use reprisal measures onofficers and train crews of trains on which citizens were being forcedto ride, and also authority to execute prisoners from Custer's commandin equal number to the men hanged at Front Royal and elsewhere. 

It was not until November that he was able to secure prisoners fromCuster's brigade, it being his intention to limit his retaliation tomen from units actually involved in the hangings. On November 6, heparaded about twenty-five such prisoners and forced them to draw lots, selecting, in this manner, seven of them--one for each of the menhanged at Front Royal and another for a man named Willis who had beenhanged at Gaines' Cross Roads several weeks later. It was decided thatthey should be taken into the Shenandoah Valley and hanged beside theValley Pike, where their bodies could serve as an object lesson. Onthe way, one of them escaped. Four were hanged, and then, running outof rope, they prepared to shoot the other two. One of these got awayduring a delay caused by defective percussion caps on hisexecutioner's revolver. 

A sign was placed over the bodies, setting forth the reason for theirexecution, and Mosby also sent one of his men under a flag of truce toSheridan's headquarters, with a statement of what had been done andwhy, re-enforced with the intimation that he had more prisoners, including a number of officers, in case his messenger failed to returnsafely. Sheridan replied by disclaiming knowledge of the Front Royalhangings, agreeing that Mosby was justified in taking reprisals, andassuring the Confederate leader that hereafter his men would be givenproper treatment as prisoners of war. There was no repetition of thehangings. 

By this time the Shenandoah Valley campaign as such was over. The lastConfederate effort to clear Sheridan out of the Valley had failed atCedar Creek on October 19, and the victor was going methodically abouthis task of destroying the strategic and economic usefulness of thevalley. How well he succeeded in this was best expressed in Sheridan'sown claim that a crow flying over the region would have to carry hisown rations. The best Mosby could do was to launch small raidingparties to harass the work of destruction. 

By the beginning of December, the northern or Loudoun County end ofMosby's Confederacy was feeling the enemy scourge as keenly as thevalley, and the winter nights were lighted with the flames of burninghouses and barns. For about a week, while this was going on, Mosbyabandoned any attempt at organized action. His men, singly and insmall parties, darted in and out among the invaders, sniping andbushwhacking, attacking when they could and fleeing when they had to, and taking no prisoners. When it was over, the northern end of Mosby'sConfederacy was in ashes and most of the people had "refugeed out, "but Mosby's Rangers, as a fighting force, was still intact. OnDecember 17, for instance, while Mosby was in Richmond conferring withGeneral Lee, they went into the valley again in force, waylaying acolumn of cavalry on the march, killing and wounding about thirty andbringing off 168 prisoners and horses. 

When Mosby came back from Lee's headquarters, a full colonel now, hisbrother William was made a lieutenant-colonel, and Richards became amajor. The southern, or Fauquier County, end of Mosby's Confederacywas still more or less intact, though crowded with refugees. There waseven time, in spite of everything, for the wedding of theForty-Third's armorer, Jake Lavender, with John and Jimmy Edmonds'sister. 

While the wedding party was in progress, a report was brought in tothe effect that Union cavalry were in the neighborhood of Salem, a fewmiles away. Mosby took one of his men, Tom Love, a relative of one ofthe Front Royal victims, and went to investigate, finding that theenemy had moved in the direction of Rectortown, where they weremaking camp for the night. Sending a resident of the neighborhood toalert Chapman and Richards for an attack at daybreak, Mosby and Loveset out to collect others of his command. 

By this time, it was dark, with a freezing rain covering everythingwith ice. Mosby and Love decided to stop at the farm of Ludwell Lakefor something to eat before going on; Love wanted to stay outside onguard, but Mosby told him to get off his horse and come inside. Asthey would have been in any house in the neighborhood, Mosby and hiscompanion were welcomed as honored guests and sat down with the familyto a hearty meal of spareribs. 

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While they were eating, the house was surrounded by Union cavalry. Mosby rushed to the back door, to find the backyard full of soldiers. He started for the front door, but as he did, it burst open and anumber of Yankees, officers and men, entered the house. At the sametime, the soldiers behind, having seen the back door open and shut, began firing at the rear windows, and one bullet hit Mosby in theabdomen. In the confusion, with the women of the Lake familyscreaming, the soldiers cursing, and bullets coming through thewindows, the kitchen table was overturned and the lights extinguished. Mosby in the dark, managed to crawl into a first-floor bedroom, wherehe got off his tell-tale belt and coat, stuffing them under the bed. Then he lay down on the floor. 

After a while, the shooting outside stopped, the officers returned, and the candles were relighted. The Union officers found Mosby on thefloor, bleeding badly, and asked the family who he was. They said, ofcourse, that they did not know, and neither did Tom Love--he was onlya Confederate officer on his way to rejoin his command, who hadstopped for a night's lodging. There was a surgeon with the Uniondetachment. After they got most of Mosby's clothes off and put him onthe bed, he examined the wounded Confederate and pronounced his woundmortal. When asked his name and unit, Mosby, still conscious, hastilyimprovised a false identity, at the same time congratulating himselfon having left all his documents behind when starting on this scoutingtrip. Having been assured, by medical authority, that he was as goodas dead, the Union officers were no longer interested in him and soonwent away. 

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Fortunately, on his visit to Lee's headquarters, Mosby had met an oldschoolmate, a Dr. Montiero, who was now a surgeon with the ConfederateArmy, and, persuading him to get a transfer, had brought him back withhim. Montiero's new C. O. Was his first patient in his new outfit. Early the next morning, he extracted the bullet. The next night Mosbywas taken to Lynchburg. 

Despite the Union doctor's pronouncement of his impending death, Mosbywas back in action again near the end of February, 1865. His returnwas celebrated with another series of raids on both sides of themountains. It was, of course, obvious to everybody that the sands ofthe Confederacy were running out, but the true extent of the debaclewas somewhat obscured to Mosby's followers by their own immediatesuccesses. Peace rumors began drifting about, the favorite item ofwish-thinking being that the Union government was going to recognizethe Confederacy and negotiate a peace in return for Confederate helpin throwing the French out of Mexico. Of course, Mosby himself neverbelieved any such nonsense, but he continued his attacks as thoughvictory were just around the corner. On April 5, two days after theUnion army entered Richmond, a party of fifty Mosby men caught theirold enemies, the Loudoun Rangers, in camp near Halltown and beat thembadly. On April 9, the day of Lee's surrender, "D" Company and thenewly organized "H" Company fired the last shots for the Forty-ThirdVirginia in a skirmish in Fairfax County. Two days later, Mosbyreceived a message from General Hancock, calling for his surrender. 

He sent a group of his officers--William Mosby, Sam Chapman, WalterFrankland and Dr. Montiero--with a flag of truce, and, after severalother meetings with Hancock, the command was disbanded and most of themen went in to take the parole. 

When his armistice with Hancock expired, Mosby found himself with onlyabout forty irreconcilables left out of his whole command. As GeneralJoe Johnston had not yet surrendered, he did not feel justified ingetting out of the fight, himself. With his bloodied but unbowedhandful, he set out on the most ambitious project of his entiremilitary career--nothing less than a plan to penetrate into Richmondand abduct General Grant. If this scheme succeeded, it was hisintention to dodge around the Union Army, carry his distinguishedprisoner to Johnston, and present him with a real bargaining point fornegotiating terms. 

They reached the outskirts of Richmond and made a concealed campacross the river, waiting for darkness. In the meanwhile, two of theparty, both natives of the city, Munson and Cole Jordan, went in toscout. Several hours passed, and neither returned. Mosby feared thatthey had been picked up by Union patrols. He was about to send anolder man, Lieutenant Ben Palmer, when a canal-boat passed, and, hailing it, they learned of Johnston's surrender. 

That was the end of the scheme to kidnap Grant. As long as aConfederate force was still under arms, it would have been alegitimate act of war. Now, it would be mere brigandage, and Mosby hadno intention of turning brigand. 

So Mosby returned to Fauquier County to take the parole. For him, thefighting was over, but he was soon to discover that the war was not. At that time, Edwin M. Stanton was making frantic efforts toinculpate as many prominent Confederates as possible in the Boothconspiracy, and Mosby's name was suggested as a worthy addition toStanton's long and fantastic list of alleged conspirators. A witnesswas produced to testify that Mosby had been in Washington on the nightof the assassination, April 14. At that time, Stanton was able toproduce a witness to almost anything he wanted to establish. Fortunately, Mosby had an alibi; at the time in question, he had beenat Hancock's headquarters, discussing armistice terms; even Stantoncouldn't get around that. 

However, he was subjected to considerable petty persecution, and oncehe was flung into jail without charge and held incommunicado. His wifewent to Washington to plead his case before President Johnson, whotreated her with a great deal less than courtesy, and then beforeGeneral Grant, who promptly gave her a written order for her husband'srelease. 

Then, in 1868, he did something which would have been social andpolitical suicide for any Southerner with a less imposing war record. He supported Ulysses S. Grant for President. It was about asunexpected as any act in an extremely unconventional career, and, asusual, he had a well-reasoned purpose. Grant, he argued, was aprofessional soldier, not a politician. His enmity toward the Southhad been confined to the battlefield and had ended with the war. Hehad proven his magnanimity to the defeated enemy, and as President, hecould be trusted to show fairness and clemency to the South. 

While Virginia had not voted in the election of 1868, there is noquestion that Mosby's declaration of support helped Grant, and Grantwas grateful, inviting Mosby to the White House after his inaugurationand later appointing him to the United States consulate at Hong Kong. After the expiration of his consular service, Mosby resumed his lawpractice, eventually taking up residence in Washington. He found timeto write several books--war reminiscences and memoirs, and a volume invindication of his former commander, Jeb Stuart, on the Confederatecavalry in the Gettysburg campaign. He died in Washington, at the ageof eighty-three, in 1916. 

The really important part of John Mosby's career, of course, was thetwo years and three months, from January, 1863, to April, 1865, inwhich he held independent command. With his tiny force--it neverexceeded 500 men--he had compelled the Union army to employ at leastone and often as high as three brigades to guard against hisdepredations, and these men, held in the rear, were as much out of thewar proper as though they had been penned up in Andersonville or LibbyPrison. 

In addition to this, every northward movement of the Confederate Armyafter January, 1863, was accompanied by a diversionary operation ofMosby's command, sometimes tactically insignificant but alwayscontributing, during the critical time of the operation, to theuncertainty of Union intelligence. Likewise, every movement to thesouth of the Army of the Potomac was harassed from behind. 

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It may also be noted that Sheridan, quite capable of dealing with themenace of Stuart, proved helpless against the Mosby nuisance, although, until they were wiped out, Blazer's Scouts were the mostefficient anti-Mosby outfit ever employed. In spite of everything thatwas done against them, however, Mosby's Rangers stayed in businesslonger than Lee's army, and when they finally surrendered, it was notbecause they, themselves, had been defeated, but because the war hadbeen literally jerked out from under them. 

Mosby made the cavalry a formidable amalgamation of fire power andmobility and his influence on military history was felt directly, andsurvived him by many years. In his last days, while living inWashington, the old Confederate guerrilla had a youthful friend, ayoung cavalry lieutenant fresh from West Point, to whom he enjoyedtelling the stories of his raids and battles and to whom he preachedhis gospel of fire and mobility. This young disciple of Mosby's oldage was to make that gospel his own, and to practice it, later, withgreat success. The name of this young officer was George S. Patton, Jr. --H. Beam Piper

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 Jeb Stuart left John Singleton Mosby behind Northern lines "to look after loyal Confederate people. " But before the war was over, Mosby did a lot more than that. .. . 

A True Book-Length Feature

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