Of the many threads of history woven into the battle of Cedar Creek, one of the most unusual and least susceptible to re-enactment is the role of Confederate Col. John Singleton Mosby's Partisan Rangers.
Mosby's Rangers, formally the 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion, do not appear as combatants at Cedar Creek or in the Shenandoah Valley battles leading up to that engagement - Lynchburg, Kernstown, Opequon or Fishers Hill - for although they were active in the valley, they were not part of Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early's command.
Mosby entered the war as a private in the 1st Virginia Cavalry, commanded by J.E.B. Stuart, then a colonel, in 1861. He fought at Bull Run and was commissioned a lieutenant in February 1862 and began scouting for Stuart soon afterward.
'He is bold, daring ...'
According to Henry Kyd Douglas, a Marylander then serving on the staff of Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson as a captain, Stuart sent Mosby to Jackson on July 19, 1862, with this note: "The bearer, John S. Mosby, late first lieutenant, 1st Virginia Cavalry, is en route, to scout beyond the enemy's lines toward Manassas and Fairfax. He is bold, daring, intelligent and discreet. The information he may obtain and transmit to you may be relied upon and I have no doubt he will give additional proofs of his value."
Douglas described Mosby as "a young gentleman, with smooth face, clear-cut, handsome features, bright steady eye, slender body, fairly tall and well carried, firm mouth and quiet manner."
Mosby served with Stuart in the Peninsular and Antietam campaigns, and in January 1863 he was given permission to form an independent command and engage in guerrilla warfare behind Union lines in the Loudoun Valley of Northern Virginia.
Mosby later described the beginning of his Ranger career: "When the year 1863 arrived Fredericksburg had been fought, and the two armies, in winter quarters, were confronting each other on the Rappahannock. Both sides sought rest; the pickets on the opposite banks of the river had ceased firing and gone to swapping coffee and tobacco. The cavalry had been sent to the rear to forage.
"But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell. I did not want to rust away my life in camp, so I asked Stuart to give me a detail of men to go over to Loudoun County, where I thought I could make things lively during the winter months. Always full of enterprise, Stuart readily assented, and I started off on my career as a partisan. At the time I had no idea of organizing an independent command, but expected to return to Stuart when the campaign opened in the spring. I was indifferent to rank, and would have been as contented to be a lieutenant as a colonel.
"I was somewhat familiar with the country where I began operations, having picketed there the year before. The lines of the troops attached to the defenses of Washington extended from about Occoquan, on the lower Potomac, through Centreville, in Fairfax County, to the falls of the upper Potomac, and then as far west as Harpers Ferry. This was a long line to defend, and before I went there had not been closely guarded. I began on the picket-lines; my attacks were generally in the night-time, and usually the surprise compensated for the disparity in numbers."
Toward the end of the war, the Partisan Rangers were a feared force in their area of operations, which became known as Mosby's Confederacy.
Mosby was promoted to major in April 1863, to lieutenant colonel in February 1864, and to colonel in December 1864. His command, numbering about 200 men by the end of the war, was mustered into the Army of Northern Virginia as the 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry on June 10, 1863. By 1864, Mosby's men were active in the Shenandoah Valley, attacking the Union army's outposts and supply lines.
Fighting Mosby
Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan was intent on doing something about Mosby. On Aug. 20, 1864, he formed Blazers Scouts, "100 men who will take the contract to clean out Mosby's gang. I want 100 Spencer rifles for them," he wrote to Maj. Gen. Christopher C. Augur, commander of the Department of Washington.
Capt. Richard Blazer, originally of the 91st Ohio Infantry, commanded the Independent Scouts, and his efforts drew the respect of Mosby's men. "He appeared to be ever in the saddle, and was constantly turning up where he was least expected and least desired. ... Mosby and Blazer could not long inhabit opposite sides of the Blue Ridge Mountain," wrote Maj. John Scott, an officer in Mosby's battalion and his early biographer.
On Nov. 18, 1864, soon after the battle of Cedar Creek, Maj. Adolphus Richards of Mosby's command, attacked Blazer and 61 of his men near Kabletown, W.Va., in a fight that soon faded into the uncertainty of time. Blazer's casualties included between 16 and 24 killed, six and 12 wounded, and the remainder captured. Blazer was captured and imprisoned in Richmond, Va., with the survivors of his command.
The Custer incident
In September, Mosby's troopers became involved in an incident with Brig. Gen. George A. Custer's 3rd Cavalry Division that particularly illustrated the severity of the total war that Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan was waging to clear the Shenandoah of Confederate forces and devastate the area so that it could not supply provisions to the Confederate army.
Thomas A. Lewis describes this encounter in his book, "Guns of Cedar Creek," published in 1998: "After a September 25 skirmish in the Luray Valley with some of Mosby's Rangers, Federal cavalrymen became convinced that one of their men had been robbed and murdered after surrendering to the partisans. In a rage they made a barbaric display of executing six of Mosby's men in and around Front Royal. It was reported to Mosby - and widely believed then and afterwards - that Custer had ordered the executions.
"No one who was involved talked or wrote much about this shameful incident, but the few references to it that survive indicate that Custer had nothing to do with these killings, although at the time he never denied the accusations, probably approved of the action and most likely enjoyed the additional notoriety. In November, Mosby would order an equivalent number of prisoners from Custer's command marched down the Berryville Road to within a few miles of Sheridan's headquarters and there executed. In a coldly formal letter to Sheridan, Mosby would then demand that the hangings stop. They did."
Mosby had informed the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Gen. Robert E. Lee, of the execution of his men and requested permission to execute a like number of federal prisoners, and Lee had approved his request. Despite Mosby's intention to execute seven prisoners, only three were killed. The Confederates ran out of rope; two prisoners escaped, and two were shot and left for dead.
By the end of the war, Mosby had accumulated a considerable force. "His men received no pay but were allowed to keep all of the plunder they could secure, which formed an inducement for many reckless individuals to join the band. Mosby maintained discipline over them by the understanding that for any failure in obedience they would be sent to the regular army, which was regarded in the light of a Botany Bay," according to Scott in his book, "Partisan Life with Colonel John S. Mosby," republished in 1959.
Even after the defeat of Early's command at Cedar Creek, Mosby's men managed to maintain themselves in the Shenandoah Valley. Their depradations became so annoying that on Aug. 16, 1864, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant told Sheridan, "If you can possibly spare a division of cavalry, send them into Loudoun County to destroy and carry off the crops, animals, negroes and all men under fifty years of age capable of bearing arms. ... In this way you will get many of Mosby's men."
"The ultimate result of a system of guerrilla warfare," said Sheridan, "is the total destruction of all private rights in the country occupied by such parties. This destruction may as well commence at once, and the responsibility of it must rest upon the authorities at Richmond, who have acknowledged the legitimacy of guerrilla bands."
'Clear the country'
Sheridan told Maj. Gen. Wesley Merritt, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, "to clear the country of [guerrillas] that are bringing destruction upon the innocent as well as their guilty supporters by their cowardly acts. ... Consume and destroy all forage and subsistence, burn all barns and mills and their contents, and drive off all stock in the region. ... This order must be literally executed, bearing in mind, however, that no dwellings are to be burned and no personal violence offered to the citizens."
Merritt put the orders into effect between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2. He estimated that 5,000 to 6,000 cattle, 3,000 to 4,000 sheep and 1,000 hogs were destroyed or driven off. Loudoun County suffered over $1 million in property damage in the raid, according to John E. Divine's "Loudoun County and the Civil War," published in 1961.
At the time of Lee's surrender, Mosby's battalion numbered about 600 men, all well mounted. Mosby wrote to Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, then commanding the Shenandoah department, saying that, while he thought that no emergency had arisen that would justify the surrender of his command, he was not disposed "to cause the useless effusion of blood, or to inflict on a war-worn population any unnecessary distress."
Vindictive elements in the North demanded that Mosby be seized as a criminal, not subject to Lee's terms of surrender at Appomattox, but Grant instructed Hancock: "You may receive all rebel officers and soldiers who surrendered to you on exactly the same terms that were given to General Lee, except have it distinctly understood that all who claim homes in states that never passed ordinances of secession have forfeited them, and BTC can only return on compliance with amnesty proclamation."
On April 21, Mosby assembled his band for the last review. "I have summoned you together for the last time. The vision that we cherished of a free and independent country has vanished, and that country is now the spoil of the conqueror. I disband your organization in preference to surrendering to our enemies. I am no longer your commander," he said.
Text of Mosby's letter
Lt. Col. John S. Mosby's letter to Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan read:
Nov. 11, 1864
Major General Philip H. Sheridan
Commanding, U.S. forces in the Valley
General:
Sometime in the month of September during my absence from my command, six of my men who had been captured by your forces were hung and shot in the streets of Front Royal by the order in the immediate presence of Brigadier General Custer. Since then another (captured by a Colonel Powell in a plundering expedition into Rappahannock) shared a similar fate. A label fixed to the coat of one of the murdered men declared: 'This would be the fate of all Mosby's men.'
Since the murder of my men, not less than 700 prisoners, including many officers of high rank captured from your army by this command, have been forwarded to Richmond, but the execution of my purpose of retaliation was deferred in order as far as possible to confine its operations to Custer and Powell. Accordingly, on the 6th inst., 7 of your men were by my orders executed on the Valley turnpike, your highway of travel.
Hereafter, any prisoners falling into my hands will be treated with kindness due their condition, unless some new act of barbarity ++ shall compel me reluctantly to adopt a line of policy repugnant to humanity.
Respectfully your obedient servant,
John S. Mosby, Lt. Col.
Report on Mosby
In its edition of Oct. 26, 1864, after reporting on the Battle of Cedar Creek, The Sun reported this observation on the guerrilla war conducted by John Singleton Mosby's command:
A correspondent of the Enquirer, with Mosby's command, says: "From the 1st of January to the 1st of October, by a minute calculation, Mosby has killed and captured sixty-nine Federals for every man he had lost.
Pub Date: 10/15/98