Description
By John S. Mosby. These are the uncensored memoirs of John Singleton Mosby, the legendary Confederate cavalry leader who bedeviled the Union army for four years, almost within sight of the U.S. capitol.
With only a few thousand local men under his command, Mosby’s ability to strike fast and then melt away before an effective pursuit could be organized kept the Yankee forces awake and often snarled in knots. His ability to disappear into the dark night or the deep woods earned him the nickname “The Gray Ghost.”
With daring feats like capturing a Yankee general out of his bed within his own defended headquarters, Mosby made his name a synonym for guerrilla warfare.
Even today you can purchase in Virginia a map showing “Mosby’s Confederacy.” Here Mosby supporters sheltered and fed him and his troops despite the danger to themselves. The character of the man may be judged by the enemies he kept.
Said General Joseph Hooker, “I may here state that while at Fairfax Court House my cavalry was reinforced by that of Major-General Stahel. The latter numbered 6,100 sabers… The force opposed to them was Mosby’s guerrillas, numbering about 200, and, if the reports of the newspapers were to be believed, this whole party was killed two or three times during the winter. From the time I took command of the army of the Potomac, there was no evidence that any force of the enemy, other than the above-named, was within 100 miles of Washington City; and yet the planks on the chain bridge were taken up at night” for fear of Mosby.
Mosby outraged many of his Southern admirers after the war when he publicly endorsed General U.S. Grant for President.
After an appointment as U.S. Consul to Hong Kong and a 16-year career with the Southern Pacific Railroad, he came to Washington as an assistant attorney in the Department of Justice. Loyal to the end to his commander, J.E.B. Stuart, Mosby also answered accusations that Stuart’s mistakes cost Lee the battle of Gettysburg.
From his recollections of Grant and Lee to his blow-by-blow accounts of the battles at Manassas, Fairfax Court House, Gettysburg and more, here is Mosby’s brutally honest account in his own words of the most devastating war in American history.
Softcover, 6″×9″, 262 pages
