Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
been retained as printed.
Words printed in italics are marked with underlines: _italics_.
[Illustration]
Mosby's War Reminiscences
Stuart's Cavalry Campaigns
By
JOHN S. MOSBY
New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1898
COPYRIGHT, 1887,
BY
GEO. A. JONES & CO.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
Opening of Hostilities. Volunteering to serve the Confederacy.
Virginia Brimfull of Patriotism. J. E. B. Stuart showing
Qualities of a Great Leader of Cavalry 5
CHAPTER II.
Experiences in the Confederate Cavalry. Adventures on the Picket
Line. Capture of a Federal Wagon Train 14
CHAPTER III.
Christmastide Raids. Why Union Cavalrymen once left their
Turkeys. Cripples who harassed the Federal Camp by Night. Ben
Hatton's Experience as an Unwilling Guide 27
CHAPTER IV.
Harassing the Army of the Potomac. Exciting Raid in Northern
Virginia. The Bucktail Plan to capture Mosby's Command 39
CHAPTER V.
How Major Gilmer tried to capture Mosby's Command. Scared
Vermonters hide in a Miller's Wheat Bins. Sorrow changed to
Happiness at Middleburg, Va. 50
CHAPTER VI.
Sergeant Ames, of the Fifth New York Cavalry, deserts and joins
Mosby. Old Dr. Drake's Saddle-Bags. Capture of a Federal Picket
at Herndon Station. The Dash and Excitement of a Cavalry
Skirmish. A Shot in the Dark 62
CHAPTER VII.
Sudden Attacks upon Federal Cavalry Outposts. A Confederate
Blacksmith's Achievements in Arms. A Running Fight How a Repulse
was Turned into a Victory. The Sabre as a Weapon for Cavalrymen 78
CHAPTER VIII.
The Influence of Martinets and Red Tape on the Confederate
Service. A Hand to Hand Fight with Vermont Cavalry. A Close Call.
The Remorseless Revolver. Impending Defeat turned into Triumph.
The Ludicrous 98
CHAPTER IX.
In Pursuit. Elaborate Plans made to capture "Mosby." How a Union
Major-General deceived himself. A Chase that failed to accomplish
its Object. Why a Raid on a Railroad was temporarily postponed 115
CHAPTER X.
In the Saddle. What saved Hooker's Supplies at Chancellorsville.
Cavalry Skirmishes. Raids against Wagon Trains and Railroad
Guards 129
CHAPTER XI.
Raid through the Lines of the Union Army. A Wrecked Train. Brave
Spirits who fell by the Little Howitzer 142
CHAPTER XII.
On the Road to Gettysburg. Raid over the Potomac River into
Maryland. Narrow Escape from Capture. Marches at Night in the
Union Columns 154
CHAPTER XIII.
Gen. Stuart's Raid around the Rear of Hooker's Army. Gen.
Longstreet, in the Century Magazine, condemns Stuart's "Wild Ride
around the Federal Army." Letter from Gen. Longstreet to Gen.
Lee, suggesting Stuart's "Wild Ride around the Federal Army."
Stuart acting under Orders 178
CHAPTER XIV.
Stuart's Cavalry. Descriptive of Stuart's Raid around McClellan's
Army 205
MOSBY'S WAR REMINISCENCES.
CHAPTER I.
"Rebellion!
How many a spirit born to bless,
Hath sunk beneath that withering name,
Whom but a day's--an hour's--success
Had wafted to eternal fame."--_Tom Moore._
In April, 1861, I was attending court at Abingdon, Va., when I met a
person who had just stepped out of the telegraph office, who informed
me that tremendous tidings were passing over the wires. Going in, I
inquired of the operator what it was, who told me that Lincoln had
issued a proclamation calling out troops. Fort Sumter had fallen two
days before. The public mind was already strained to a high pitch of
excitement, and it required only a spark to produce an explosion. The
indignation aroused by the President's proclamation spread like fire on
a prairie, and the laws became silent in the midst of arms. People of
every age, sex, and condition were borne away on the tide of excited
feeling that swept over the land.
The home of Gov. John B. Floyd, who had resigned as secretary of war
under Buchanan, was at Abingdon. I went to his house and told him the
news. He immediately issued a call to arms, which resounded like the
roll of Ziska's drum among the mountains of southwestern Virginia. Many
of the most influential families in that region were descendants of the
men who had fought under Morgan and Campbell at Eutaw Springs and
King's Mountain. Their military spirit was inflamed by stirring appeals
to the memories of the deeds their sires had done. Women, too, came
forward to inspire men with a spirit of heroic self-sacrifice, and a
devotion that rivalled the maidens of Carthage and Saragossa.
All the pride and affection that Virginians had felt in the traditions
of the government which their ancestors had made, and the great
inheritance which they had bequeathed, were lost in the overpowering
sentiment of sympathy with the people who were threatened with
invasion. It is a mistake to suppose that the Virginia people went to
war in obedience to any decree of their State, commanding them to go.
On the contrary, the people were in a state of armed revolution before
the State had acted in its corporate capacity. I went along with the
flood like everybody else. A few individuals here and there attempted
to breast the storm of passion, and appeared like Virgil's ship-wrecked
mariners, "Rari nantes in surgite vasto." Their fate did not encourage
others to follow their example, and all that they did was to serve
"like ocean wrecks to illuminate the storm." In anticipation of these
events, a cavalry company had for some months been in process of
organization, which I had joined as a private. This company--known as
the Washington Mounted Rifles--was immediately called together by its
commanding officer, Capt. William E. Jones. Capt. Jones was a graduate
of West Point, and had resigned some years before from the United
States army. He was a stern disciplinarian, and devoted to duty. Under
a rugged manner and impracticable temper he had a heart that beat with
warm impulses. To his inferiors in rank he was just and kind, but too
much inclined to cross the wishes and criticise the orders of his
superiors. He had been a classmate of Stonewall Jackson at the military
academy, and related to me many anecdotes of Jackson's piety, as well
as his eccentricities. He was a hard swearer; and a few days after the
battle of Bull Run he told me that he was at Jackson's headquarters,
and Jackson got very much provoked at something a soldier had done,
when Jones said, "Jackson, let me cuss him for you." He fell in battle
with Gen. Hunter, in the valley of Virginia, in June, 1864. We went
into barracks at Abingdon, and began drilling.
No service I ever had to perform during the war went as much against
the grain as standing guard the first night I was in camp. I had no
friends in the cavalry company, so I applied to Gov. Litchen for a
transfer to an infantry company that had been raised in that part of
the county where I resided. But on the very day I made the application,
a telegraphic order came for us to start for Richmond immediately, and
I never heard anything more of it. My company marched on horseback all
the way to Richmond--about five hundred miles--while the infantry
company went by rail. But how small is the control that mortals have
over their own destinies. The company to which I unsuccessfully applied
to be transferred became a part of the immortal division of Stonewall
Jackson, in which I would have had only a slight chance of asserting my
individuality, which would have been merged in the mass. I remember
distinctly, now, how with a heart almost bursting with grief, in the
midst of a rain, I bade my friends in the infantry company farewell
just as they were about getting on the train. I had no dream then that
I would ever be anything more than a private soldier. On the same day
in rain and mud we started on the march to Richmond. A few days before
a flag had been presented to our company by a young lady, with an
address in which she reminded us that "the coward dies a thousand
deaths--the brave man dies but one." I am sure there was not a man
among us who did not feel the ambition of the youth in Longfellow's
poem, bearing
Onward amid the ice and snow of Alpine heights
His banner with its strange device.
The march to Richmond under a soldier who had bivouacked on the plains
was a course of beneficial discipline. The grief of parting from home
and friends soon wore away, and we all were as gay as if we were going
to a wedding or a picnic. Gloom was succeeded by mirth and songs of
gladness, and if Abraham Lincoln could have been sung out of the South
as James II. was out of England, our company would have done it and
saved the country all the fighting. The favorite songs were generally
those of sentiment and sadness, intermingled with an occasional comic
melody. I remember this refrain of one that often resounded from the
head to the rear of the column as we passed some farmer's house:
He who has good buttermilk a plenty, and gives the soldiers none,
He shan't have any of our buttermilk when his buttermilk is gone.
The buttermilk, as well as everything else that the farmer had that was
good, was generally given to the soldiers. The country was brimful of
patriotism.
The gayety with which men marched into the face of death is not so
remarkable as the fortitude and cheerfulness of the wives and mothers
who stayed at home and waited for the news of the battles. In nearly
every home of the South could be found an example of that Spartan
mother who sent her son to the wars with her last injunction to return
with his shield or return upon it. This courage, exhibited in the
beginning, survived to the last, through all the long agony and bloody
sweat of the struggle. On reaching Richmond, after a few days' rest, we
were ordered to the Shenandoah valley. A day or so before we started,
Capt. Jones made a requisition on the quartermaster's department for
clothing for his company. We were furnished with suits of a very rough
quality of goods manufactured in the Virginia penitentiary. It almost
produced a mutiny in the camp. The men piled the clothes up in front of
the captain's tent. Only two refused to wear them--Private Fountain
Beattie and myself. I do not think any clothes I ever wore did me more
service than these. When I became a commander I made Beattie a
lieutenant. I think we were both as contented on the picket line,
dressed in our penitentiary suits, as we ever were in the gay uniforms
we afterwards wore. Our march from Richmond to the Shenandoah valley
was an ovation--our people had had no experiences of the misery and
desolation that follow in the track of war; they were full of its
romance, and expected us to win battles that would rival the glories of
Wagram and Marengo. They never counted the cost of victory.
Our company was incorporated into the 1st regiment of Virginia cavalry,
commanded by Col. J. E. B. Stuart. It was stationed at a village called
Bunker Hill, on the turnpike leading from Winchester to Martinsburg,
and was observing the Union army under Patterson, which was then
stationed at the latter place, on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston then had his headquarters at Winchester. I first saw
Stuart at Bunker Hill. He had then lately resigned from the United
States army to link his fortunes with the Southern Confederacy. He was
just twenty-eight years of age--one year older than myself--strongly
built, with blue eyes, ruddy complexion, and a reddish beard. He wore a
blouse and foraging cap with a linen cover, called a havelock, as a
protection against the sun. His personal appearance indicated the
distinguishing traits of his character--dash, great strength of will,
and indomitable energy. Stuart soon showed that he possessed all the
qualities of a great leader of cavalry--a sound judgment, a quick
intelligence to penetrate the designs of an enemy, mingled with the
brilliant courage of Rupert.
There was then such a wide chasm between me and him that I was only
permitted to view him at a distance, and had no thought of ever rising
to intimacy with him. He took us the next day on a scout down toward
Martinsburg and gave us our first lesson in war and sight of the enemy.
We saw the hills around the town covered with the white tents of the
Union army, and caught two soldiers who had ventured too far outside
the picket lines. Since then I have witnessed the capture of thousands,
but have never felt the same joy as I did over these first two
prisoners.
A few days after this, Patterson started out on a promenade toward
Winchester, and then turned squarely off, and went back toward
Charlestown. Patterson made a good deal of noise with the shells that
he threw at us, but nobody was hurt. Stuart kept close on his flanks,
both to watch his movements and to screen Johnston's, who had just
begun to move to join Beauregard at Manassas. Fitz John Porter and
George H. Thomas, who afterward became distinguished generals, were on
his staff. Patterson has been greatly censured for not pressing
Johnston, and detaining him in the Shenandoah valley, instead of making
the retrograde movement to Charlestown that permitted his escape. He
alleges that he acted under the advice of his staff officers. Patterson
was a conspicuous figure as well as failure in the first scene of the
first act of the drama of war; after that he disappeared forever. His
campaign in the Shenandoah valley was a mere prologue to the great
tragedy that was afterward acted there. Stuart left him in a position
where he could neither be of advantage to the cause he upheld nor
injury to that he opposed, and crossed the Blue Ridge to take part in
the battle of Bull Run, on the 21st of July.