Biography of Col. John Singleton Mosby:Part 3: Mosby's Rangers
Mosby had won a friend and patron in JEB Stuart. After the successful raid around McClellan which Mosby's scouting work had made possible, Stuart expressed his desire to help Mosby gain his own command.
Mosby drew up plans for a band of partisans who would operate behind enemy lines, disrupting shipments of materiel for the Union Army.
In January 1863, Stuart approved Mosby's plan and gave him a few men to begin his operation.
Soon the ranks swelled, with support from most of the local community in occupied Northern Virginia. Their operations were so successful that his reputation soon reached legendary proportions.Other "partisan ranger" units were not so well regarded. When the Confederate government acted to ban partisan units, they exempted only two units, Mosby's and McNeill's -- at the personal intervention of Robert E. Lee.
As a result of the ban on partisan units, Mosby's group was officially designated as part of the regular Confederate army and became the 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion of the Army of Northern Virginia. Their primary objective consisted of destroying railroad supply lines between Washington and Northern Virginia, as well as intercepting dispatches and horses and capturing Union soldiers
(Follow this link for more about Mosby's Rangers)Mosby's numbers rose from one dozen to over a thousand by the end of the war. Mosby's rank likewise rose steadily.
He was promoted to Captain March 15, 1863 and to Major less than two weeks later (March 26, 1863). He later was elevated to Lieutenant Colonel on January 21, 1864 and full Colonel on December 7, 1864, the day after his 31st birthday.
While commanding Mosby's Rangers, he was never captured. He was seriously injured in 1864 when visiting the Lake family house in Loudoun County, when a passing Yankee soldier saw a person in Confederate uniform through the window and fired, hitting Mosby in the abdomen.
He escaped capture by having the presence of mind to hide his uniform coat under a washstand. Taking blood from his stomach wound, he smeared it on his mouth and feigned the "death rattle" of a dying man, stating his name to be "Lieutenant Johnson".
The Yankees left for a dying man. It was only when they got back to their bivouac and examined the plumed hat that they had taken as booty did they realize that their casualty was Mosby.
This gave rise to Union rumors that Mosby had been killed. Mosby's men encouraged this speculation, buying Col. Mosby time to recover at his mother's house.
Gen. Robert E. Lee cited Mosby for meritorious service more often than any other Confederate officer during the course of the war. Late in the war, during the early stages of the seige of Petersburg, Mosby was especially honored by the Confederate Congress, and accorded a special seat on the floor of the House during his stay.
During this visit, he conferred with General Lee and realized how dire the situation was for the Confederacy. It was to be the last time he would visit Richmond as the capital of a free and independent Southern Nation.
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