1st Lt. Fountain Beattie, Co. E,
b. November 10, 1840, at "Chilhowie", Glade Spring, Washington County, VA, the son of Robert and Pauline White Beattie.
m. 1965 to Anne Elizabeth Hathaway. 12 children
d. March 25, 1923
Fountain Beattie was, in effect, the first Mosby Ranger. As Private John Mosby's messmate in the Washington Mounted Rifles, they rapidly became good friends and realized they shared a common outlook.
For example, when the unit's commander, Capt. William "Grumble" Jones managed to obtain uniforms for the unit from a local prison, all but two of the men rejected the uniforms, heaping them in a pile in front of the Captain's tent. The two wore the uniforms were Mosby and Beattie.
This rapidly brought them to the favorable attention of Jones, who selected them for scout duty and assigned them to receive two of the only six pistols issued to the unit (now Company D of the First Virginia Cavalry) by JEB Stuart prior to First Manassas.
It is probable that Beattie already knew Capt. Jones well, as Jones and Beattie, as well as Will Dunn who would later become the 43rd Battalion's company surgeon, all came from Glade Springs.
In December, 1862, when Mosby asked JEB Stuart to allow him to remain behind in Northern Virginia with a detachment of nine men from the First Virginia, Fount Beattie was one of the nine. In fact, he is the only one of the original nine who can positively be documented. He was also the group of 15 men assigned to Mosby for the longer term on January 18th. The First Virginia Cavalry muster rolls for the first half of 1863 show him as "absent on detached service with Mosby since January 1", whereas the July muster role shows him as "transferred to Major Mosby."
Beattie's loyal friendship was one of the things that held the unit together in those crucial early days. However, soon after the fifteen were assigned and had ridden their first raids, Col. Sir Percy Wyndham sent a detail to Middleburg with the aim of capturing Mosby's men.
In the ensuing skirmish, the Federals managed to capture Beattie and two other men, probably Thomas Beaty (no relation) and Edward Walter, as well as rounding up a number of older men and invalids among the citizenry of Middleburg.
Beattie was sent to the Old Capitol Prison, from which he was paroled on March 29th, by which time he would have heard the news of his comrades' spendid success in the March 9th Fairfax Courthouse Raid. Rather than being sent across the Potomac, he was shipped all the way to City Point, the usual place for prisoner exchanges and therefore did not get back to the command until late April.
In early May, he was responsible for bringing the unit a 12 lb mountain howitzer, a gift from JEB Stuart who assumed the men would put it to good use. He was captured again at the end of May, at Greenwich, just down the road from Catlett, after the Catlett's Station raid. Sent again to the Old Capitol Prison, but was released fairly soon thereafter (parole date not recorded). Upon the formal organization of the Battalion on June 10, he was promoted to Sergeant of Company A.
He was involved in many of the command's most noteworthy actions, including the Great Wagon Raid and the Greenback Raid and was wounded in action at the Loudoun Heights fight in January '64. On July 28, 1864, he was promoted to First Lieutenant of Company E.
During most of his time with Mosby, he boarded at James H. Hathaway's house, near Rectortown, along with Mosby, whose wife joined him there in April of 1863. (It was at the Hathaways that Mosby narrowly escaped capture by the Federals by climbing out the window onto a tree branch, while his wife espressed her indignance to the Yankee soldiers who would be rude enough to enter her chamber.)
Fount Beattie's interest in the Hathaway family went far beyond wanting to board with his friend and commanding officer. A romance was brewing with the Hathaway's daughter Ann. She and Beattie were married in 1865.
After the War, Lt. Beattie and Col. Mosby kept in frequent touch. As for so many of his friends, Mosby exercised his influence with the Grant and Hayes administrations to obtain patronage jobs. At Mosby's recommendation, Beattie was appointed Deputy Collector in Internal Revenue for Virginia's Sixth District in 1875, a post he held until retiring in 1914.
In 1878, he bought Green Springs Farm, an 18th century farmhouse with over 300 acres of land, just off the Little River Turnpike east of Annandale, near a route he had ridden many times in his days as a Ranger. (In fact, it was not too far from the scene of one of the wagon train raids and of the skirmish at Gooding's Tavern where Col. Mosby had been wounded.)
After the War, he attended several reunions of the Rangers and joined the Lee Camp of the UCV in Alexandria. Loyal to his friend to the last, he served as Col. Mosby's lead pallbearer at his funeral on June 1, 1916.
The year after Col. Mosby's death, Beattie sold Green Springs Farm, having lost money in land speculations in Florida, and moved to Old Town Alexandria, where he resided at 422 N. Peyton Street. He atteneded the 43rd Battalion's 1918 reunion in Front Royal and the command's last reunion in Culpeper.
He died on March 25, 1923, and is recorded in the Keen and Mewborn book as being buried in St. James' Cemetery in Falls Church. This latter fact is interesting, as this is a Catholic church (nb: I know because I was baptised there! - KC) Were the Hathaway family Catholic and did Beattie convert? He was raised as a Presbyterian, his family having been part of the same late 18th century migration from Northern Ireland to Virginia that brought Will Dunn's family to Washington County.
If any descendants could enlighten us on this point, we'd be grateful.
Mentions in various references:
(incomplete, more to be added)Virgil Carrington Jones, Ranger Mosby (1944)
44, 53, 54, 75, 71, 76, 115, 117, 129, 133, 169, 190, 308,Links Online:
Fountain Beattie and Ann Elizabeth Hathaway had twelve children and therefore have many descendants. The descendants of Fount Beattie hold periodic reunions at Green Springs Farm, the former Beattie home which is now owned by the Fairfax County Parks Authority and there is an excellent website put together by the descendants with photographs, biographical information and genealogical data.
Follow this link to visit the site:
Fountain Beattie Descendants WebsiteDescendants / Researcher Contacts:
A number of descendants names and email addresses are provided on the website listed above.
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