Biography of Col. John Singleton Mosby:Part 5: Twilight of a Hero
After returning to the United States, from Hong Kong, he became active on the lecture circuit and penned his war reminiscences and several other works for magazines and newspapers, spreading his account of his exploits during the war and defending his mentor General J.E.B. Stuart against criticism for his role in the battle of Gettysburg.
His literary efforts were widely appreciated, earning him good reviews in both North and South. As well as making history, he was a respected historian in his own right.
As he got older, his rugged individualism and independence gained him a reputation for irrascibility. 1897, while visiting Charlottesville, Mosby was kicked in the head by a horse, fracturing his skull and injuring his eye.Unconscious, he was rushed to the University of Virginia hospital. As he regained consciousness, a young doctor leaned over to check him: “What’s your name?” he asked.
Mosby replied, “None of your damned business!” A surgeon in the room to operate on Mosby spoke up, “He’s conscious all right!
At the age of 67, Mosby lost his job with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and President William McKinley secured for him a job with the Department of the Interior, enforcing federal fencing laws in Omaha.
Mosby did so with such vigor that local politicians had him recalled, and he was sent to Alabama to chase trespassers on government-owned land.
Later, he was appinted to a job in the newly-organized U.S. Justice Department, as one of the first Assistant Attorneys General, a position he kept until his retirement in 1910.His health was extremely good until his last two years when he gradually weakened and frequently succumbed to a number of minor illnesses, all of which weakened him further.
In the spring of 1916 he took a turn for the worse and was admitted to Washington's Garfield Hospital where he died on May 30, 1916 at the age of 82. It was Memorial Day. He is buried in Warrenton Cemetery, next to his beloved Pauline and several of his children, including his eldest son, who had predeceased him by only a few months. Several of his Rangers are also buried there, including the brave Richard Mountjoy of Mississippi.
One obituary referred to him as "the last of the dashing figures of the War Between the States."
Despite his enormous contribution to the Confederate war effort, Mosby never was elevated to the level of public hero that he deserved during his lifetime.Perhaps if he had fallen in battle like his mentor JEB Stuart, or General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, or the gallant Pelham or his partisan ranger commander contemporary Turner Ashby, he would have been added the pantheon of Confederate heros a little earlier.
However, the slightly built and frail young boy who was expected to die young, managed to outlive most of his contemporaries.
His legendary status existed chiefly in Northern Virginia, with bursts of public adulation nationally centering around the publication of his various reminiscences and Civil War historical works.
It took the work of historian Virgil Carrington Jones, with the publication of his book, Ranger Mosby, in 1944, and subsequent pop-culture spinoffs during the 1961-65 Centennial era to make him the cultural icon that he is today.
Although Mosby was a modest man and didn't place much value on honors, he did always say that he liked to be thanked. The publication of so many books and articles about his exploits, and his popularity as a subject of contemporary Civil War art is a testimony to the fact that today, Colonel John Singleton Mosby, CSA, is well and truly thanked.
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Mosby's Memoirs
Complete text, online from UNC Chapel Hill Library
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