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Mosby's Effectiveness

Major General Thomas Lafayette Rosser opposed the use of guerillas in Virginia, claiming they were undisciplined and cowardly. He is shown as a colonel in this view.

McCulloch in Texas was not the only Confederate officer disillusioned with partisans. Brigadier General Thomas L. Rosser, commanding in the Shenandoah Valley, felt the same way. Angered by McNeill's refusal to cooperate in a foraging expedition, in January 1864 he damned all guerrillas in a letter to General Lee:

Without discipline, order or organization, they roam broadcast over the country, a band of thieves, stealing, pillaging, plundering and doing every manner of mischief and crime. They are a terror to the citizens and an injury to the cause. They never fight; can't be made to fight. Their leaders are generally brave, but few of the men are good soldiers and have engaged in this business for the sake of gain.

Jeb Stuart, Rosser's immediate superior, received the letter first and passed it on to Lee with the comment that guerrilla "organizations, as a rule, are detrimental to the best interest of the army at large." However he exempted Mosby's 43d Battalion from this criticism - it was "the only efficient band of Rangers" that he knew of.

Lee agreed with Rosser and Stuart: Guerrillas would benefit the cause more by filling the thin ranks of the regular army. Hence he recommended to Secretary of War James Seddon that the Partisan Ranger Act be repealed. On February 17, 1864 the Confederate Congress so acted, whereupon Lee requested Seddon to disband all officially recognized partisan outfits in Virginia and North Carolina save Mosby's. "Mosby," he explained, "has done excellent service, and from the reports of citizens and other I am inclined to believe that he is strict in discipline and a protection to the country in which he operates." Seddon complied with Lee's wishes, except that he allowed McNeill's company to remain in existence also - which no doubt annoyed Rosser.

Mosby, who at Lee's urging was promoted to lieutenant colonel in February, continued his forays through northern Virginia during the early months of 1864. Although mischance caused him to fail in an attempt to capture a Union detachment atop Loudoun Heights outside of Harpers Ferry, he enjoyed numerous successes in attacking outposts, burning bridges, ambushing patrols, and in general harrying the enemy. But, unknown to him at the time, he just missed doing something that might have altered the course of the entire war. Late in March he surprised a squad of Yankee cavalry and chased it pell mell through Warrenton Junction. A few minutes after he galloped by with his men, a train chugged into the station and stopped. Aboard it, without any guards, was Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant.

Also active at this time was Gilmor, whose company escaped being disbanded because technically it was part of the 2d Maryland Cavalry, hence could be considered regular even though it fought in an irregular style. Just how irregular became manifest on February 11 when it derailed a B & O train near Kearneysville, then made the passengers "stand and deliver." Worse, while returning from this expedition, some of his followers robbed a party of Jewish merchants from Richmond, taking besides gold and currency an overcoat, a silver watch, and a Hebrew prayer book. Greatly distressed by these outrages, Lee had Gilmor hailed before a court-martial which, however, acquitted him on the basis of his denial that he had taken any personal part in the robberies.

Perhaps that was the truth: Even Mosby closed his eyes to a little private bushwhacking by his men. In any case, by 1864 Southerners no longer found guerrillas to be the romantic figures they had seemed at the outset of the war. But then the war itself had become a much grimmer affair.

While Grant hammered and maneuvered his way toward Richmond, another Union army moved into the Shenandoah Valley. Its object was to deprive the Confederates of their prime source of food and forage and to open the way for an assault from the west on Lee, who already was hard pressed on the north and east. Should this strategy succeed, the South would lose the war.

Aware of the peril, the partisans went a11-out against Federal supply lines in the Valley and north Virginia. Raids by Mosby, McNeill, Gilmor, and Imboden helped defeat the first Yankee thrust under Major General Franz Sigel, who detached so many men to guard his wagons that he lacked sufficient strength to beat back the make-shift Confederate army that routed him at New Market on May 15.

Sigel was replaced by Major General David Hunter, who penetrated deep up the Valley. But after reaching Lynchburg, a combination of Jubal Early's army in his front and guerrilla attacks on his rear forced him to turn back. Moreover, in part because of the supply problem created by the partisans, instead of retreating down the Shenandoah, he sidestepped into western Virginia, thus opening the way for Early's famous raid to the very outskirts of Washington in July. While Early romped through Maryland, Mosby also crossed the Potomac and cut the B & O for two days at Point of Rocks. Subsequently he routed three different Union detachments in as many engagements.

Determined to crush the Confederates in the Valley once and for all, Grant assigned his best fighter, Major General Phil Sheridan, to the job, at the same time providing him with a field army of over 40,000 infantry and cavalry, three times the number of men that Early could scratch together. Yet, despite his immense superiority, Sheridan held back, even fell back. One reason was that he and Grant grossly over-estimated Early's force. But another was the same problem that had plagued Sigel and Hunter - logistics. The very size of his army, plus the ravaged condition of the lower Shenandoah, made it necessary for him to haul practically every ounce of food and forage by wagons. And constantly pouncing on the wagons were guerrillas - mainly Mosby's, but also swarms of independent, local bands. In order to protect his wagon trains Sheridan had to provide them with large escorts. In addition, so many of his couriers were waylaid by bushwhackers that he began detailing entire cavalry squadrons to carry messages! These and other necessary detachments substantially reduced his battle strength, although his subsequent claim that he had only a slight margin in numbers over Early is demonstrably false.

Finally, after two months of preparation and hesitation Sheridan advanced, and on September 19 at Winchester and three days later at Fisher's Hill defeated Early and sent him reeling up the Valley. He pursued as far as Waynesboro; then a shortage of supplies caused him to withdraw northward again. As he did so his troops devastated the countryside, turning it into a "barren desert."

By now Union soldiers in the Shenandoah had become embittered over the frequent murdering of their comrades by guerrillas. Although these crimes were actually committed by the freelance bushwhackers who hung on the edges of Sheridan's army, they blamed Mosby's men. Hence on September 23, when Major General George A. Custer's troopers captured six members of the 43d Battalion following an attack on a wagon train, they shot four of them and hanged the remaining two. Around the neck of one they placed a sign reading "This will be the fate of Mosby and all of his men."

Mosby, who had been put out of action temporarily by a wound suffered on September 14, did not get around to retaliating until five weeks later. Then, with Lee's approval, he executed five Federal prisoners chosen by lot (two others escaped). It was, he subsequently stated, the most "loathsome" act of his career, but necessary if his followers were to be respected as legitimate soldiers. Following the reprisal, he wrote Sheridan: "Hereafter any prisoners falling into my hands will be treated with the kindness due to their condition, unless some new act of barbarity shall compel me reluctantly to adopt a line of policy repugnant to humanity." Not another one of Mosby's men was killed after being captured.

Grant, mistakenly believing that Early was finished, urged Sheridan to join him at Richmond, where their combined forces could overwhelm Lee. To facilitate such a movement, as well as to relieve Sheridan's supply situation, he ordered the rebuilding of the Manassas Gap Railroad, which connected Strasburg in the Shenandoah with the Orange & Alexandria. But Mosby, employing artillery, prevented the construction crews from laying any new track; moreover, for good measure he tore up sizable stretches of the old track. As a consequence Sheridan stayed in the Valley and Lee (who since the death of Stuart in May personally supervised Mosby's operations) wrote the partisan commander, "Your success ... gives great satisfaction."

Mosby next turned his attention to the B & O, over which Sheridan obtained most of his supplies. On the night of October 13 he derailed a ten-car military train in a gorge near Duffield, Virginia, set it afire, and captured twenty Federals - among them two paymasters carrying $173,000 in U.S. currency. Merrily Mosby's rangers rode back to their base from this "Greenback Raid," two fiddlers playing "Malbrook Has Gone To The Wars."

On October 19 Early counterattacked Sheridan at Cedar Creek, but after initial success suffered total defeat. Now there was nothing to prevent Sheridan from moving westward to link up with Grant. Except Mosby, that is. Again the Federals tried to restore the Manassas Gap Railroad in order to transfer Sheridan's army to the Richmond theater, and once more Mosby stopped them. In their frustration the Union military authorities resorted to such expedients as cutting down the forests bordering the rail line, moving the local population, and even placing Southern sympathizers aboard trains in hopes that Mosby would not attack them. But he did - and when the Yankees threatened to send women and children on the trains, he coolly replied, "I do not understand that it hurts women and children to be killed any more than it hurts men"!

Ultimately, at the end of November, the Federals gave up. In his memoirs Mosby declared that his success in halting the rebuilding of the Manassas Gap Railroad "was of greater military value than anything I did in the war, for it saved Richmond for several months." This is probably an exaggeration - after all Sheridan could have, as he in fact advocated, joined Grant by a more round-about route - but certainly Lee demonstrated that he thought highly of Mosby's services by having him promoted to full colonel.

Another indication of Mosby's effectiveness was the special campaign that Sheridan waged in late 1864 to "break him up." His troops ravaged the Loudoun Valley, hoping to turn the people against the guerrillas for having brought such misery on them. He sent a veteran regiment of elite cavalry into northern Virginia to reinforce the units already there who, according to General Halleck, had been "so often cut up by Mosby's band that they are cowed and useless." And he gave a "contract to clean out Mosby's gang" to a 100-man company armed with Spencer repeating rifles and commanded by "hardened Indian fighter" Richard Blazer. The Yankee depredations, however, merely made the inhabitants of the Loudoun Valley all the more willing to aid the partisans, the elite cavalry experienced no more success than its predecessors, and on November 19 a portion of the 43d Battalion under Captain Adolphus "Dolly" Richards virtually destroyed Blazer's riflemen: A Yankee may have invented the Colt revolver but it was Southern boys who showed what could be done with it!

Once, a few days before Christmas, the Federals did capture Mosby - only they did not know it. Surprised in a house and shot through the lower stomach by Northern cavalrymen, he did such a good job of concealing his identity and of pretending to be dying that they left him where he was. By the time they discovered their mistake, friendly civilians had carried him to safety and eventual recovery. Not so lucky was Hanse McNeill. Early in October, while attacking Union bridge guards near Mount Jackson in the Shenandoah, he was mortally wounded by a bullet fired by one of his own followers who had a grudge against him.

Mosby passed the winter at his mother's house in Charlottesville recovering from his wound. While he was absent part of his command went to the Northern Neck to obtain forage, but the rest under "Dolly" Richards remained active in the Loudoun Valley, destroying a 15-car B & O train and routing a 250-man Federal cavalry force.

In the Shenandoah, Early instructed Gilmor to take charge of all guerrilla bands and lead them in a concentrated attack on the B & O in hopes of preventing Sheridan from transferring troops to Grant. But neither Jesse McNeill, Hanse McNeill's son and successor, nor Buck Woodson, an independent bushwhacker chieftain, would recognize Gilmor's authority. Worse, Union spies tracked Gilmor, with the result that on February 5 a Yankee cavalry squadron captured him in a farmhouse near Moorefield.

Enraged by McNeill's and Woodson's insubordination, Early urged Lee to disband all partisan organizations, including even Mosby's. Lee agreed in principle, but before he could take action on the matter, sensational news arrived at his headquarters: McNeill's rangers had slipped into Cumberland, Maryland on the night of February 21 and captured no less than two Yankee major generals - George Crook and Benjamin F. Kelley. (They also could have taken Brigadier General and Congressman-elect James A. Garfield and Major William L. McKinley, but McNeill's object was to get Crook and especially Kelley, whom he blamed for the imprisonment of his mother in 1862; he made no effort to collect additional prisoners.)

Mosby, who met McNeill soon after the raid, admitted that it topped his capture of Stoughton, and declared that he now would have to go after Lincoln - something which in fact he had once jokingly threatened to do, sending a lock of his hair to Lincoln with a message that he would come some night and get a piece of the President's hair!

McNeill's exploit, the most spectacular of its kind during the war, perhaps forestalled Lee from doing what the Federals had not been able to do in four years - break up the Virginia partisans. In any case, he had more important concerns. On March 2 Sheridan mopped up the remnant of Early's army at Waynesboro, then swung eastward with his cavalry to join Grant for the kill on the Richmond-Petersburg front. Realizing that the situation was now desperate, Lee sent word to Mosby, who had rejoined his command, to "watch and protect" northern Virginia.

Mosby responded by surprising and capturing nearly all of the Loudoun Rangers, a company of Virginia Unionists, which had dogged his trail for over two years. This, however, proved to be his last important success. On April 9 Lee's surrounded, starving, and decimated army surrendered at Appomattox Court House. Twelve days later Mosby, after waiting to see if there would be any point in continuing the struggle by joining Johnston's forces in North Carolina, disbanded his rangers. Other Virginia partisan outfits did the same. None formally surrendered. Why should they? The Confederate Army had been defeated, not they.

Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border Gilmore. The western front saw some of the bloodiest fighting during the Civil War, waged both by Union raiders and by Confederate guerrillas. Here, you'll read about this reign of terror and learn how the rampant confiscation and destruction of property in the territory - known as the "burnt region" - drove citizens to fight back.

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