Civil War 8x10 Photo:#177 Col. John S. Mosby

COL. JOHN S. MOSBY

Col. John S. Mosby, C.S.A. between 1860 and 1865.

John Singleton Mosby (December 6, 1833 – May 30, 1916) also known as the "Gray Ghost," was a Confederate partisan Ranger (a partisan is similar to a guerrilla fighter) in the American Civil War. He was noted for his lightning quick raids and his ability to successfully elude his Union Army pursuers and disappear (like a ghost) with his men, blending in with local farmers and townspeople

Mosby spoke out against secession, but joined the Confederate army as a private at the outbreak of the war and initially served in William "Grumble" Jones's Washington Mounted Rifles. (Jones became a major and was instructed to form a more collective "Virginia Volunteers", which he created with two mounted companies and eight companies of infantry and riflemen including the Washington Mounted Rifles.) Mosby was upset with the Virginia Volunteers' lack of congeniality and he wrote to the governor requesting to be transferred. However, his request was not granted. The Virginia Volunteers participated in the First Battle of Bull Run.

After impressing J.E.B. Stuart with his scouting ability, Mosby was promoted to first lieutenant and assigned to Stuart's cavalry scouts, helping the general develop attack strategies. He was responsible for Stuart's "Ride around McClellan" during the Peninsula Campaign. Captured by Union cavalry, Mosby was imprisoned in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., for ten days before being exchanged. Even as a prisoner, Mosby spied on his enemy. During a brief stopover at Fort Monroe, he detected an unusual buildup of shipping in Hampton Roads and further inquiries convinced him that they were carrying thousands of troops under Ambrose Burnside from North Carolina on their way to reinforce John Pope in the Northern Virginia Campaign. When he was released, Mosby walked to army headquarters outside Richmond and personally related his findings to Robert E. Lee.

In January 1863, Stuart, with Lee's concurrence, authorized Mosby to form and take command of the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry, Partisan Rangers, which later expanded into Mosby's Command, a regimental sized unit of partisan rangers operating in Northern Virginia. The Confederate government certified special rules to govern the conduct of partisan rangers, and these included sharing in the disposition of spoils of war. Having previously been promoted to Captain (March 15, 1863) and Major (March 26, 1863) in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States, he was soon promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on January 21, 1864 and eventually to Colonel, December 7, 1864.

Initially, Mosby's group consisted of Fount Beatie, Charles Buchanan, Christopher Gaul, William L. Hunter, Edward S. Hurst, Jasper and William Jones, William Keys, Benjamin Morgan, George Seibert, George M. Slater, Daniel L. Thomas, William Thomas Turner, Charles Wheatley, and John Wild. He and his men carried out the Greenback Raid and attacked Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's wagon train at Berryville.

Mosby is famous for carrying out a daring raid far inside Union lines at the Fairfax County courthouse in March 1863, where his men captured three high ranking Union officers, including Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Stoughton, whom Mosby allegedly found in bed, rousing him with a slap to his rear. The disruption of supply lines and the constant disappearance of couriers frustrated Union commanders to such a degree that Grant told Sheridan, "When any of Mosby's men are caught, hang them without trial." On September 22, 1864, Union forces that Mosby believed (not necessarily correctly) to be commanded by, and acting with the knowledge of, Union Brig. Gen. George A. Custer executed six of Mosby's men in Front Royal, Virginia; a seventh was executed on a subsequent occasion. William Thomas Overby was one of the men selected for execution on the hill in Front Royal. His captors offered to spare him if he would reveal Mosby's location, but he refused. According to reports at the time, his last words were, "Mosby will hang 10 of you for every one of us." After his death, a Union soldier pinned a piece of paper on his shirt that read: "Such is the fate of all of Mosby's gang."

After informing General Robert E. Lee and Confederate Secretary of War James A. Seddon of his intention to respond in kind, Mosby ordered seven Union prisoners, chosen by lot, to be executed in retaliation on November 6, 1864, at Rectortown, Virginia. The soldiers charged with carrying out the orders hanged three men; they shot two more in the head and left them for dead (remarkably, both survived); the other two condemned men managed to escape. On November 11, 1864, Mosby wrote to Sheridan, as the commander of Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley, requesting that both sides resume treating prisoners with humanity, and pointing out that he and his men had captured (and returned) far more of Sheridan's men than they had lost. The Union side complied and, with both camps treating prisoners as "prisoners of war" for the duration, there were no more executions.

Several weeks after Robert E. Lee's surrender, Mosby simply disbanded his rangers, refusing to surrender formally.