Mosby a master at guerrilla warfare

[SR-25]

Date published: 1/22/2005


WHILE WE typically think of Civil War fighting in terms of large battles involving armies comprising thousands of soldiers, small skirmishes entailing a handful of men were more the norm. At times, the threat posed by some of these small skirmishes could cause one army to tie up thousands of soldiers. That may well be what one small band of Confederates in Northern Virginia serving under John Singleton Mosby accomplished.

At a meeting of the Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round Table, Gregg Dudding and Don Hakenson, co-authors of "This Forgotten Land: A Tour of Civil War Sites and Other Historical Landmarks South of Alexandria, Virginia," spoke about some of Mosby's activities on the outskirts of Washington.

Mosby began the war as a private in the Confederate cavalry, but was recognized as a man of talent by some of his superiors, eventually functioning as an independent scout for cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart. Stuart also saw greater potential for Mosby in authorizing him to begin partisan ranger activities, operating behind enemy lines, causing as much havoc as possible. Mosby's goal was to force the Federal army to commit troops to the rear echelon areas for the protection of lines of supplies and communications--troops that would otherwise be dispatched to the front lines to fight Robert E. Lee's main Confederate army.

Mosby's Rangers did not operate as a regular military unit. Partisan rangers practiced guerrilla warfare, and with the aid of the local citizens of predominantly Fauquier and Loudoun counties, remained in concealment until summoned to participate in a raid.

Mosby's Rangers began their raids in January of 1863, and the task of trying to put a stop to Mosby's activities was assigned to Federal cavalry officer Col. Percy Wyndham. A personal animosity grew between the two officers. Infuriated by Mosby's unconventional tactics, Wyndham called Mosby nothing but a horse thief; Mosby countered that the only horses he stole had Federal soldiers mounted on them.

The first of Mosby's most prominent exploits came as a result of an attempt by Mosby to capture his archrival on the night of March 8-9, 1863. Learning the location of Wyndham's headquarters in the town of Fairfax Court House, Mosby, with a party of just 29 men, slipped into the village under the cover of darkness, only to find that Mosby's intended victim had been summoned to Washington and was absent from his headquarters.

But the rangers discovered from a telegraph operator that a Federal general, Edwin H. Stoughton, commanding Vermont infantrymen, was headquartered nearby at the Gunnell House, so Mosby, with five of his men, set out to attempt to capture him instead. The small party approached the guard at the door of the Gunnell house proclaiming to be Federal cavalrymen with a message for Stoughton. When Lt. Prentiss of the general's staff was summoned to answer the door, the rangers forced their way inside, held a pistol to Prentiss' head and told the staff officer to take them to the general.

Mosby's unwilling escort took him to an upstairs bedroom, where champagne bottles provided evidence of earlier merriment by the young Federal general who was found sleeping in a nightshirt. One of the accounts of that night reports that Mosby woke the general by lifting up Stoughton's nightshirt and slapping him on the rear. He then asked the startled and groggy general, "Did you ever hear of Mosby?" Apparently rationalizing the reason for being wakened in middle of the night, Stoughton answered, "Yes, have you caught him?" He soon learned that instead of capturing Mosby, that Mosby had captured him. Mosby's small band of 29 rangers had taken into custody one general, two captains, 38 men and 58 horses--all without firing a shot and without any loss to the rangers.

Another Federal cavalryman who was frustrated at being assigned to combat the illusive rangers was Col. Russell Lowell, who complained that Mosby was like "an old rat" disappearing into "a great many holes." On Aug. 24, 1863, about 30 of Lowell's men accompanying a herd of about 100 horses were attacked by Mosby with a like number of rangers at Goodling's Tavern, about 10 miles from Alexandria. Mosby split his command in half, attacking both the front and rear of the Yankee detachment. Though the raid was successful, Mosby was wounded twice in the action, and relinquished command of the rangers until his return on Sept. 20.

Anxious to refute rumors that he had died, Mosby decided to attempt to capture another prominent Federal figure. Francis H. Pierpont, governor of the new state of West Virginia moved the "Restored Government of Virginia" from Wheeling to Alexandria. Mosby considered Pierpont a bogus governor, and selected his capture as the aim of a Sept. 27, 1863, raid.

As had been the case earlier, when he had sought to capture Wyndham, Pierpont had also spent the night of the raid targeting him away in Washington. But once again, Mosby's men found a suitable substitute capture, heading to the home of Pierpont's aide, Col. D.H. Dulany. Dulany thought that the horsemen clad in gray appearing at his home were Federal scouts in disguise, until he recognized his son French, one of Mosby's Rangers who had assisted in the capture of his own father.

Since Col. Dulany believed that shoes were "damned scarce in the Confederacy," the father suggested that his son take a pair of shoes from the home before they left. French lifted a pants leg to reveal a fine pair of boots, asking his father's opinion of them. Col. D.H. Dulany was sent to Libby Prison in Richmond. French Dulany was killed a year later in Herndon.

Mosby's men ranged as far west as the Shenandoah Valley, but it was his raids on the doorstep of Washington, in places like Fairfax and Alexandria, that may have sent the greatest shock waves through the Federal capital. It is difficult to determine how many troops retained in the Washington area would have been sent to the battlefront if not for the threat posed by Mosby's Rangers.

In September of 1864, Robert E. Lee summarized the damage that Mosby's Rangers had caused thus far. "With the loss of little more than 20 men, he has killed, wounded, and capturedabout 1,200 of the enemy and taken more than 1,600 horses and mules, 230 beef-cattle, and 85 wagons and ambulances," in addition to valuable information provided on enemy troop movements.

Mosby's impact on the war was significant, and the daring of his raids frustrated enemy officers, and caused the morale of opposing troopers to plummet.

GREG MERTZ, a historian living in Spotsylvania County, is the founding president of the Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round Table.

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