Abridged
from the pages of
Harper's Weekly A Journal of Civilization,
Volume IX, Issue 421, January 21, 1865
THE REBEL COLONEL MOSBY
John
Singleton Mosby, long notorious as a rebel guerrilla, was born in Virginia in
1832. Little is popularly known of his career before the war. In 
1862 he was a
Lieutenant in Lee's army, and for his services in harassing our troops
encamped near Fredericksburg met with General Lee's approval and was promoted
Major. In March, 1863, he captured General Stoughton at Fairfax Court House.
He was wounded near this same place in August of that year, and was unable
previous to January, 1864, to resume his official duties. Last August he was
again wounded and put hors du combat for two months, after which he again
appeared in a raid on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, for which he was made
Lieutenant-Colonel. December 10 he was given the full rank of Colonel. We give
below an account, entitled "Two Days with Mosby," which, as being
substantially true, will prove very interesting to our readers. This rebel
Colonel has been the centre of a great deal of fabulous romance during the
war. He has been recently wounded again, and so seriously that his friends, it
is reported, despair of his recovery.
TWO DAYS WITH MOSBY.
I was up at reveillé.
Orders to inspect the camp of dismounted cavalry near Harper's Ferry had been
in my pocket two days, awaiting an escort through the fifty miles of guerrilla
infested country which lay between me and that distant post. This was the day
for the regular train, and a thousand wagons were expected to leave Sheridan's
head-quarters, on Cedar Creek, at daylight, with a brigade of infantry as
guard, and a troop of cavalry as outriders.
An hour's ride of eight miles
along a picketed line across the valley brought me to the famous "Valley
Pike," and near the head-quarters of the army. Torbert was there, and I
awaited his detailed instructions. Unavoidable delay ensued. Dispatches were
to be sent, and they were not yet ready. An hour passed, and, meantime, the
industrious wagon-train was lightly and rapidly rolling away down the pike.
The last wagon passed out of sight, and the rear-guard closed up behind it
before I was ready to start. No other train was to go for four days. I must
overtake this one or give up my journey. At length, accompanied by a single
orderly, and my colored servant, George Washington, a contraband, commonly
called "Wash," I started in pursuit of the train.
As I had nearly passed Newtown
I overtook a small party apparently of the rear-guard of the train, who were
lighting their pipes and buying cakes and apples at a small grocery on the
right of the pike, and who seemed to be in charge of a non-commissioned
officer.
"Good-morning, Sergeant.
You had better close up at once. The train is getting well ahead, and this is
the favorite beat of Mosby."
"All right, Sir," he
replied with a smile, and nodding to his men, they mounted at once and closed
in behind me, while quite to my surprise I noticed three more of the party
whom I had not before seen in front of me.
An instinct of danger at once
possessed me. I saw nothing to justify it, but I felt a presence of evil which
I could not shake off. The men were in Union blue complete, and wore on their
caps the well-known Greek cross which distinguishes the gallant Sixth Corp.
They were young, intelligent, cleanly, and good-looking soldiers, armed with
revolvers and Spencer's repeating carbine. I noticed the absence of sabres,
but the presence of the Spencer, which is a comparatively new arm in our
service, reassured me, and I thought it impossible that the enemy could as yet
be possessed of them.
We galloped on merrily, and
just as I was ready to laugh at my own fears, "Wash," who had been
riding behind me and had heard some remark made by the soldiers, brushed up to
my side, and whispered through his teeth chattering with fear,
"Massa, secesh sure! Run like de debbel!"
I turned to look back at these words, and saw six
carbines leveled at me at twenty paces distant, and the Sergeant, who had
watched every motion of the negro, came riding toward me with revolver drawn
and the sharp command, "Halt. Surrender!"
We had reached a low place
where the Opequan Creek crosses the pike, a mile from Newtown. The train was
not a quarter of a mile ahead, but out of sight for the moment over the west
ridge.
High stone-walls lined the pike
on either side, and a narrow bridge across the stream was in front of me and
already occupied by the three rascals who had acted as advance-guard, who now
coolly turned round and presented carbines also from their point of view.
I remembered the military
maxim, a mounted man should never surrender until his horse is disabled, and
hesitated an instant considering what to do, and quite in doubt whether I was
myself or some other fellow whom I had read of as captured and hung by
guerrillas; but at the repetition of the sharp command, aided by the somewhat
disagreeable presence of the revolver immediately in my face, I concluded I
was undoubtedly the other fellow, and surrendered accordingly.
My sword and revolver were
taken at once by the Sergeant, who proved to be a rebel lieutenant in
disguise, and who remarked, laughing as he took them,
"We closed up, Captain, as
you directed; as this is a favorite beat of Mosby's, I hope our drill was
satisfactory."
"All right, Sergeant.
Every dog has his day, and yours happens to come now. Possibly my turn may
come to-morrow."
"Your turn to be
hung," he replied.
It was not long before I was
ushered into the presence of the great modern highwayman, John S. Mosby,
Lieutenant-Colonel, C.S.A.
He stood a little apart from
his men, by the side of a splendid gray horse, with his right hand grasping
the bridle-rein, and resting on the pommel of his saddle -- a slight,
medium-sized man, sharp of feature, quick of sight, lithe of limb, with a
bronzed face of the color and tension of whip-cord. His hair is a yellow
brown, with full but light beard and mustache of the same; a straight Grecian
nose, firm set expressive mouth, large ears, deep gray eyes, high forehead,
large well-shaped head, and his whole expression denoting energy, hard
service, and love of whisky. He wore top-boots, and a civilian's over-coat,
black, lined with red, and beneath it the complete gray uniform of a
Confederate Lieutenant-Colonel, with its two stars on the side of the standing
collar, and the whole surmounted by the inevitable slouched hat of the whole
Southern race. His men were about half in blue and half in butternut.
Mosby, after taking my horse
and quietly examining my papers, presently looked up with a peculiar gleam of
satisfaction on his face.
"Ah, Captain B--!
Inspector-General of--'s Cavalry! Good-morning, Captain! Glad to see
you, Sir! Indeed there is but one man I would prefer to see this morning to
yourself, and that is your commander. Were you present, Sir, the other day at
the hanging of eight of my men as guerrillas at Front Royal?"
I answered him firmly, "I
was present, Sir; and, like you, have only to regret that it was not the
commander instead of his unfortunate men."
This answer seemed to please
Mosby, for he apparently expected a denial. He assumed a grim smile, and
directed Lieutenant Whiting to search me.
My gold hunting-watch and
chain, several rings, a set of shirt-studs and sleeve-buttons, a Masonic pin,
some coins, and about three hundred dollars in greenbacks, with some letters
and pictures of the dear ones at home, and a small pocket Bible, were taken.
My cavalry-boots, worth about fifteen dollars, were apprised at six hundred
and fifty in Confederate money; my watch at three thousand dollars, and the
other articles in about the same proportion, including my poor servant
"Wash," who was put in and raffled for at two thousand dollars, so
that my entire outfit made quite a respectable prize.
"Wash" was very
indignant that he should be thought worth only two thousand dollars
Confederate, and informed them that he considered himself unappreciated, and
that, among other accomplishments, he could make the best milk punch of any
man in the Confederacy.
When all this was concluded
Mosby took me a little one side, and returned to me the pocket Bible, the
letters and pictures, and the masonic pin, saying quietly as he did so,
alluding to the latter with a significant sign:
"You may as well keep
this. It may be of use to you somewhere."
I thanked him warmly for his kindness as
I took his offered hand, and really began to think Mosby almost a gentleman
and a soldier, although he had just robbed me in the most approved manner of
modern highwaymen.
Immediate preparations were
made for the long road to Richmond and the Libey. A guard of fifteen men, in
command of Lieutenant Whiting, was detailed as our escort, and, accompanied by
Mosby himself, we started directly across the country, regardless of roads, in
an easterly direction toward the Shenandoah and the Blue Ridge.
We were now in company of nine more of our men, who had been taken at
different times, making eleven of our party in all, besides the
indignant contraband "Wash," whom it was also thought prudent
to send to the rear for safe-keeping.
I had determined to escape if even
half an opportunity should present itself, and the boys were quick in
understanding my purpose, and intimating their readiness to risk their
lives in the attempt. One of them in particular, George W. McCauley,
commonly known as Mack, and another one named Brown, afterward proved
themselves heroes.
At Howettsville on the
Shenandoah, nine miles below Front Royal, we bivouacked for the night in
an old school-house.
Our party of eleven were
assigned to one side of the lower floor of the school-house, where we
lay down side by side with our heads to the wall and our feet nearly
meeting the feet of the guard, who lay in the same manner opposite us,
with their heads to the other wall, except three, who formed a relief
guard for the sentry's post at the door.
Above the head of the
guard along the wall ran a low desk, on which each man of them stood his
carbine and laid his revolver before disposing himself to sleep.
A fire before the door
dimly lighted the room; and the scene as they dropped gradually to sleep
was warlike in the extreme, and made a Rembrandt picture on my memory
which will never be effaced.
I had taken care to place myself
between McCauley and Brown, and the moment the rebels began to snore and
the sentry to nod over his pipe, we were in earnest and deep
conversation.
McCauley proposed to
unite our party and make a simultaneous rush for the carbines, and take
our chances of stampeding the guard and escaping; but on passing the
whisper quietly along our line, only three men were found willing to
assent to it. As the odds were so largely against us, it was in vain to
urge the subject.
The march began at an
early hour the next morning, and the route ran directly up the Blue
Ridge. We had emerged from the forest and ascended about one-third of
the height of the mountain, when the full valley became visible, spread
out like a map before us, showing plainly the lines of our army, its
routes of supply, its foraging parties out, and my own camp at Front
Royal as distinctly as if we stood in one of its streets.
We now struck a wood path
running southward and parallel with the ridge of the mountains, along
which we traveled for hours, with this wonderful panorama of forest and
river, mountain and plain before us in all the gorgeous beauty of the
early autumn.
"This is a favorite
promenade of mine," said Mosby. "I love to see your people
sending out their almost daily raids after me. There comes one of them
now almost toward us. If you please we will step behind this point and
see them pass. It may be the last sight you will have of your old
friends for some time," and, looking in the direction he pointed, I
saw a squadron of my own regiment coming directly toward us on a road
running under the foot of the mountain, and apparently on some foraging
expedition down the valley. They passed within a half mile of us, under
the mountain, while Mosby stood with folded arms on a rock above them.
Before noon we reached
the road running through Manassas Gap, which place was held by about one
hundred of Mosby's men, who signaled him as he approached, and here,
much to my regret, the great guerrilla left us, bidding me a kindly
good-by.
We were hurried through
the gap and down the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, and by three
o'clock reached Chester Gap, after passing which we descend into the
valley, and move rapidly toward Sperryville on the direct line to
Richmond.
Our guard was now
reduced, as we are far within the Confederate lines, to Lieutenant
Whiting and three men, and our party of eleven prisoners had seven
horses among them. There was also a pack-horse carrying our forage,
rations; and some blankets. To the saddle of this pack-horse are
strapped two Spencer carbines, muzzle downward, with their accoutrements
complete, including two well-filled cartridge-boxes.
I called Mack's attention
to this fact as soon as the guard was reduced, and he needed no second
hint to comprehend its full significance at once. He soon after
dismounted, and when it came his turn to mount again, he selected,
apparently by accident, the poorest and most broken-down horse of the
party, with which he appeared to find it very difficult to keep up, and
which he actually succeeded in some mysterious way in laming.
He then dropped back to
the Lieutenant in charge and modestly asked to exchange his lame horse
for the pack-horse, and being particularly winning in his address, his
request was at once granted without a suspicion of its object, or a
thought of the fatal carbines on the pack-saddle. I used some little
skill in diverting the attention of the Lieutenant while the pack was
readjusted; and as the rain had begun to fall freely no one of the guard
was particularly alert.
I was presently gratified
with the sight of Mack riding ahead on the pack-horse, with the two
carbines still strapped to the saddle, but loosened, and well concealed
by his heavy poncho, which he had spread as protection from the rain.
These carbines are seven-shooters, and load from the breech by simply
drawing out from the hollow stock a spiral spring, and dropping in the
seven cartridges, one after the other, and then inserting the spring
again behind them, which coils as it is pressed home, and by its
elasticity forces the cartridges forward, one at a time, into the barrel
at the successive movements of the lock.
I could see the movements
of Mack's right arm by the shape into which it threw the poncho, and
while guiding his horse with his left, looking the other way and
chatting glibly with the other boys, I saw him distinctly draw the
springs from those carbines with his right hand and hook them into the
upper button-hole of his coat to support them, while he dropped in the
cartridges one after another, trotting his horse at the time to conceal
the noise of their click, and finally forcing down the springs, and
looking round at me with a look of the finest heroism and triumph I have
ever beheld.
I nodded approval, and
fearing he would precipitate matters, yet knowing that any instant might
lead to discovery and be too late, I rode carelessly across the road to
Brown, who was on foot, and, dismounting, asked him to tighten my girth,
during which operation I told him the position of affairs as quietly as
possible, and requested him to get up gradually by the side of Mack,
communicate with him, and, at a signal from me, to seize one of the
carbines and do his duty as a soldier if he valued his liberty.
Brown was terribly
frightened and trembled like a leaf, but went immediately to his post,
and I did not doubt would do his duty well.
I rode up again to the
side of Lieutenant Whiting, and, like an echo from the past, came back
to me my words of yesterday, "Possibly my turn may come
to-morrow."
I engaged him in
conversation, and, among other things, spoke of the prospect of sudden
death as one always present in our army life, and the tendency it had to
either harden or ameliorate the character according to the quality of
the individual.
He expressed the opinion
which many hold that a brutal man is made more brutal by it, and a
refined and cultivated man is softened and made more refined by it.
We were on the immediate
flank of Early's army. His cavalry was all around us. The road was
thickly inhabited. It was almost night. We had passed a rebel picket but
a mile back, and knew not how near another one or their camps might be.
The three rebel guards
were riding in front of us and on our flanks, our party of prisoners was
in the centre, and I was by the side of Lieutenant Whiting, who acted as
rear-guard, when we entered a small copse of willow which for a moment
covered the road. The hour was propitious. I gave the fatal signal and
instantly threw myself from my saddle upon the Lieutenant, grasping him
around the arms and dragging him from his horse, in the hope of securing
his revolver, capturing him, and compelling him to pilot us outside of
the rebel lines. At the same instant Mack raised one of the loaded
carbines, and, in less time than I can write it, shot two of the guard
in front of him, killing them instantly; and then coolly turning in his
saddle, and seeing me struggling in the road with the Lieutenant, and
the chances of obtaining the revolver apparently against me, he raised
the carbine the third time; and as I strained the now desperate rebel to
my breast, with his livid face over my left shoulder, he shot him as
directly between the eyes as he could have done if firing at a target at
ten paces distance.
His hold relaxed, and his
ghastly corpse fell from my arms.
"Golly, Cap,"
said Mack, "I could have killed five or six more of them as well as
not."
Brown had only wounded
his man in the side, and allowed him to escape.
Our position was now
perilous. Not a man of us knew the country, except its most general
outlines. The rebel camps could not be far away; the whole country would
be alarmed in an hour, darkness was intervening; and I doubted not that,
before sundown, even blood-hounds would be on our track. One half our
party had already scattered, panic-stricken, at the first alarm, and
every man for himself, scouring the country in every direction.
But five remained,
including the faithful Wash, who immediately showed his practical
qualities by searching the bodies of the slain, and recovering therefrom,
among other things, my gold hunting-watch from the person of Lieutenant
Whiting, and over eleven hundred dollars in greenbacks, the proceeds,
doubtless, of their various robberies of our men.
"Not quite nuff,"
said Wash, showing his ivories from ear to ear. "Dey vally dis
nigger at two tousand dollars. I tink I ought to git de money."
We instantly mounted the
best horses, and, well armed with carbine and revolver, struck directly
for the mountain on our right; but, knowing that would be the first
place we should be sought for, soon changed our direction to the south,
and rode for hours directly toward the enemy as rapidly as we could
ride, and before complete darkness intervened we had made thirty miles
from the place of our escape; and then turning sharp up the mountain we
rode as far as horses could climb, and, abandoning them, pushed on on
foot through the whole night to the very summit of the Blue Ridge,
whence we could see the rebel camp-fires, and view their entire lines
and position, just as daylight was breaking over the Valley.
The length of this weary
day, and the terrible pangs of hunger and thirst which we suffered on
this barren mountain, pertain to the more common experience of a
soldier's life, and I need not describe them here.
We had to go still
further south to avoid the scouts and pickets, and finally struck the
Shenandoah twenty miles to the rear of Early's entire army, and there
built a raft, and floated by night forty miles down that memorable
stream, through his crafty pickets, until the glorious old flag once
more hailed us a welcome.
| Editor's
Note: The above story is intended for history study only. The
racial slurs published in the original article are not reflective
of the MMCWRT or its members. |
| Mosby and the Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy
Mosby was implicated in the assassination of President Lincoln
by Harper's Weekly shortly after it happened. Read
a related paper. |
 |
Read The
Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby edited by Charles Wells Russel and
published in 1917 (a year after he died.) In addition to his early life
he begins as the Civil War begins; included are his recollections of
several important engagements in the war as well as several important
persons including Grant and Lee. |
