"O! shadow of glory--dim image of war--
The chase hath no story--her hero no star."
--_Byron, Deformed Transformed._
After the first battle of Bull Run, Stuart's cavalry was engaged in
performing outpost duty on our front, which extended from the falls
above Washington to Occoquan, on the lower Potomac. There were no
opportunities for adventurous enterprise. McClellan's army was almost
in a state of siege in Washington, and his cavalry but rarely showed
themselves outside his infantry picket line. We had to go on picket
duty three times a week and remain twenty-four hours. The work was
pretty hard; but still, soldiers liked it better than the irksome life
of the camp. I have often sat alone on my horse from midnight to
daybreak, keeping watch over the sleeping army. During this period of
inaction, the stereotyped message sent every night from Washington to
the northern press was, "All quiet along the Potomac."
While I was a private in Stuart's cavalry, I never missed but one tour
of outpost duty, and then I was confined in the hospital from an
injury. With one other, I was stationed at the post on the road leading
from Fall's Church to Lewinsville, in Fairfax. At night we relieved
each other alternately, one sleeping while the other watched. About
dusk, Capt. Jones had ridden to the post and instructed us that we had
no troops outside our lines on that road, and that we must fire,
without halting, on any body of men approaching from that direction, as
they would be the enemy. The night was dark, and it had come my turn to
sleep. I was lying on the ground, with the soft side of a stone for a
pillow, when I was suddenly aroused by my companion, who called to me
to mount, that the Yankees were coming. In an almost unconscious state
I leaped into my saddle, and at the same instant threw forward my
carbine, and both of us fired on a body of cavalry not fifty yards
distant. Fortunately, we fired so low our bullets struck the ground
just in front of them. The flash from my carbine in my horse's face
frightened him terribly. He wheeled, and that is the last I remember
about that night. The next thing I recollect is that some time during
the next day I became conscious, and found myself lying on a bed at the
house of the keeper of the toll-gate. Capt. Jones and several of the
men of my company were standing by me. It appears that the night before
Stuart had sent a company of cavalry to Lewinsville for some purpose.
This company had gone out by one road and returned on the one where I
had been posted. My horse had run away and fallen over a cow that was
lying down, and rolled over me. The company of cavalry coming along the
same way, their horses in front started and snorted at something lying
in the road. They halted, some of them dismounted to see what it was,
and discovered me there in an insensible state. They picked me up and
carried me into the village, apparently dying. I was bruised from head
to foot, and felt like every bone in my body had been broken. I had to
be carried to Fairbay Court House in an ambulance. There is a tradition
that when Capt. Jones looked on me that night he swore harder than the
army in Flanders. The feelings he expressed for the officer in fault
were not so benevolent as my Uncle Toby's for the fly.
While the cavalry did not have an opportunity to do much fighting
during the first year of the war, they learned to perform the duties
and endure the privations of a soldier's life. My experience in this
school was of great advantage to me in the after years when I became a
commander. There was a thirst for adventure among the men in the
cavalry, and a positive pleasure to get an occasional shot "from a
rifleman hid in a thicket." There were often false alarms, and
sometimes real ones, from scouting parties of infantry who would come
up at night to surprise our pickets. A vivid imagination united with a
nervous temperament can see in the dark the shapes of many things that
have no real existence. A rabbit making its nocturnal rounds, a cow
grazing, a hog rooting for acorns, an owl hooting, or the screech of a
night hawk could often arouse and sometimes stampede an outpost or draw
the fire of a whole line of pickets. At the first shot, the reserve
would mount; and soon the videttes would come running in at full speed.
There was an old gray horse roaming about the fields at Fairfax Court
House during the first winter of the war that must have been fired at a
hundred times at night by our videttes, and yet was never touched. I
have never heard whether Congress has voted him a pension. The last
time that I was ever on picket was in February, 1862. The snow was deep
and hard frozen. My post was on the outskirts of Fairfax Court House,
at the junction of the Washington road and turnpike. I wore a woollen
hood to keep my ears from freezing, and a blanket thrown around me as a
protection against the cold wind. The night was clear, and all that's
best of dark and bright. I sat on my horse under the shadow of a tree,
both as a protection from the piercing blast and as a screen from the
sight of an enemy. I had gone on duty at midnight, to remain until
daybreak. The deep silence was occasionally broken by the cry of
"Halt!" from some distant sentinel, as he challenged the patrol or
relief. The swaying branches of the trees in the moonlight cast all
sorts of fantastic forms on the crystal snow. In this deep solitude, I
was watching for danger and communing with the spirit of the past. At
this very spot, a few nights before, the vidette had been fired on by a
scouting party of infantry that had come up from McClellan's camps
below. But the old gray horse had several times got up a panic there
which raised a laugh on the soldiers.
Now I confess that I was about as much afraid of ridicule as of being
shot, and so, unless I got killed or captured, I resolved to spend the
night there. Horatius Cocles was not more determined to hold his
position on the bridge of the Tiber, than I was to stay at my post, but
perhaps his motives were less mixed than mine. I had been long
pondering and remembering, and in my reverie had visited the fields
that I had traversed "in life's morning march when my bosom was young."
I was suddenly aroused by the crash of footsteps breaking the crust of
the hard snow. The sound appeared to proceed from something approaching
me with the measured tread of a file of soldiers. It was screened from
my view by some houses near the roadside. I was sure that it was an
enemy creeping up to get a shot at me, for I thought that even the old
horse would not have ventured out on such a night, unless under orders.
My heart began to sicken within me pretty much like Hector's did when
he had to face the wrath of Achilles. My horse, shivering with cold,
with the instinct of danger, pricked up his ears and listened as
eagerly as I did to the footsteps as they got near. I drew my pistol,
cocked it, and took aim at the corner around which this object must
come. I wanted to get the advantage of the first shot. Just then the
hero of a hundred panics appeared--the old gray horse! I returned my
pistol to my belt and relapsed into reverie. I was happy: my credit as
a soldier had been saved.
A couple of days after this my company returned there, as usual, on
picket. On this same morning Stuart came, making an inspection of the
outposts. It happened that there were two young ladies living at
Fairfax Court House, acquaintances of his, who did not like to stay in
such an exposed situation, and so Stuart had arranged to send them to
the house of a friend near Fryingpan, which was further within our
lines. At that time the possibility of our army ever retiring to
Richmond had not been conceived by the rank and file. Stuart had then
become a brigadier-general, and Capt. Jones had been promoted to be
colonel of the 1st Virginia cavalry. Although I served under Stuart
almost from the beginning of the war, I had no personal acquaintance
with him before then. He asked Capt. Blackford to detail a man to go
along as an escort for the two ladies. I had often been invited to the
house of one of them by her father, so I was selected on that account
to go with them. I left my horse with my friend Beattie to lead back to
camp, and took a seat in the carriage with the ladies. This was on the
12th of February, 1862. It began snowing just as we started, and it was
late in the afternoon before we got to Fryingpan. I then went in the
carriage to Stuart's headquarters a few miles off, at Centreville. It
was dark when I got there. I reported to him the result of my mission
to Fryingpan, and asked for a pass to go back to the camp of my
regiment, which was about four miles off on Bull Run. Stuart told me
that the weather was too bad for me to walk to camp that night, but to
stay where I was until next morning. He and Generals Joseph E. Johnston
and G. W. Smith occupied the Grigsby house and messed together. I sat
down by a big wood fire in an open fireplace in the front room, where
he and the other two generals were also sitting. I never spoke a word,
and would have been far happier trudging through the snow back to camp,
or even as a vidette on a picket post. I felt just as much out of place
and uneasy as a mortal would who had been lifted to a seat by the side
of the gods on Olympus. Presently supper was announced. The generals
all walked into the adjoining room, and Stuart told me to come in.
After they had sat down at the table, Stuart observed that I was not
there and sent for me. I was still sitting by the fire. I obeyed his
summons like a good soldier, and took my place among the _dil
majores_. I was pretty hungry, but did not enjoy my supper. I would
have preferred fasting or eating with the couriers. I know I never
spoke a word to any one--I don't think I raised my eyes from off my
plate while I was at the table.
Now, while I felt so much oppressed by the presence of men of such high
rank, there was nothing in their deportment that produced it. It was
the same way the next morning. Stuart had to send after me to come in
to breakfast. I went pretty much in the same dutiful spirit that Gibbon
says that he broke his marriage engagement: "I sighed as a lover and
obeyed as a son." But now my courage rose; I actually got into
conversation with Joe Johnston, whom I would have regarded it as a
great privilege the day before to view through a long-range telescope.
The generals talked of Judah P. Benjamin's (who was then Secretary of
War) breach of courtesy to Stonewall Jackson that had caused Jackson to
send in his resignation. They were all on Jackson's side. There was
nothing going on about Centreville to indicate the evacuation that took
place three weeks after that. Stuart let me have a horse to ride back
to camp. As soon as I got there, Col. Jones sent for me to come to his
tent. I went, and he offered me the place of adjutant of the regiment.
I had had no more expectation of such a thing than of being translated
on Elijah's chariot to the skies. Of course, I accepted it. I was never
half as much frightened in any fight I was in as I was on the first
dress parade I conducted. But I was not permitted to hold the position
long. About two months after that, when we had marched to meet
McClellan at, Yorktown, my regiment reorganized under the new act of
the Confederate Congress. Fitz Lee was elected colonel in place of
Jones. This was the result of an attempt to mix democracy with military
discipline. Fitz Lee did not reappoint me as adjutant, and so I lost my
first commission on the spot where Cornwallis lost his sword. This was
at the time an unrecognized favor. If I had been retained as adjutant,
I would probably have never been anything else. So at the close of the
first year of the war I was, in point of rank, just where I had begun.
Well, it did not break my heart. When the army was retiring from
Centreville, Stuart's cavalry was the rear guard, and I had attracted
his favorable notice by several expeditions I had led to the rear of
the enemy. So Stuart told me to come to his headquarters and act as a
scout for him. A scout is not a spy who goes in disguise, but a soldier
in arms and uniform, who goes among as enemy's lines to get information
about them. Among the survivors of the Army of the Potomac there are
many legends afloat, and religiously believed to be true, of a
mysterious person--a sort of Flying Dutchman or Wandering Jew--prowling
among their camps in the daytime in the garb of a beggar or with a
pilgrim's staff, and leading cavalry raids upon them at night. In
popular imagination, I have been identified with that mythical
character.
On the day after Mr. Lincoln's assassination, Secretary Stanton
telegraphed to Gen. Hancock, then in command at Winchester, Va., that I
had been seen at the theatre in Washington on that fatal night.
Fortunately, I could prove an alibi by Hancock himself, as I was at
that very time negotiating a truce with him. I recently heard an
officer of the United States army tell a story of his being with the
guard for a wagon train, and my passing him with my command on the
pike, all of us dressed as Federal soldiers, and cutting the train out
from behind him. I laughed at it, like everybody who heard it, and did
not try to unsettle his faith. To have corrected it would have been as
cruel as to dispel the illusion of childhood that the story of "Little
Red Riding Hood" is literally true, or to doubt the real presence of
Santa Claus. It was all pure fiction about our being dressed in blue
uniforms, or riding with him. I did capture the wagon train at the time
and place mentioned, Oct. 26, 1863, at the Chestnut Fork, near
Warrenton, Va., but we never even saw the guard. They had got sleepy,
and gone on to camp, and left me to take care of their wagons--which I
did. The quartermaster in charge of them, Capt. Stone, who was made
prisoner, called to pay his respects to me a few days ago. I can now
very well understand how the legendary heroes of Greece were created. I
always wore the Confederate uniform, with the insignia of my rank. So
did my men. So any success I may have had, either as an individual
scout or partisan commander, cannot be accounted for on the theory that
it was accomplished through disguise. The hundreds of prisoners I took
are witnesses to the contrary.
FAUQUIER COUNTY, VA., Feb. 4, 1863.
GENERAL:--I arrived in this neighborhood about one week ago. Since
then I have been, despite the bad weather, quite actively engaged
with the enemy. The result up to this time has been the capture
of twenty-eight Yankee cavalry together with all their horses,
arms, etc. The evidence of parole I forward with this. I have also
paroled a number of deserters. Col. Sir Percy Wyndham, with over
two hundred cavalry, came up to Middleburg last week to punish
me, as he said, for my raids on his picket line. I had a slight
skirmish with him, in which my loss was three men, captured by
the falling of their horses; the enemy's loss, one man and three
horses captured. He set a very nice trap a few days ago to
catch me in. I went into it, but, contrary to the Colonel's
expectations, brought the trap off with me, killing one, capturing
twelve; the balance running. The extent of the annoyance I have
been to the Yankees may be judged of by the fact that, baffled in
their attempts to capture me, they threaten to retaliate on
citizens for my acts.
I forward to you some correspondence I have had on the subject. The
most of the infantry has left Fairfax and gone towards
Fredericksburg. In Fairfax there are five or six regiments of
cavalry; there are about three hundred at Dranesville. They are so
isolated from the rest of the command, that nothing would be easier
than their capture. I have harassed them so much that they do not
keep their pickets over half a mile from camp. There is no
artillery there. I start on another trip day after to-morrow.
I am, most respectfully, yours, etc.,
JOHN S. MOSBY.
MAJ.-GEN. J. E. B. STUART.
HEADQUARTERS CAVALRY DIVISION, Feb. 8, 1863.
Respectfully forwarded as additional proof of the prowess, daring,
and efficiency of Mosby (without commission) and his band of a
dozen chosen spirits.
J. E. B. STUART,
_Major-General Commanding_.
Headquarters, Feb. 11, 1863.
Respectfully forwarded to the Adjutant and Inspector-General as
evidence of merit of Capt. Mosby.
R. E. LEE,
_General_.