Pvt. William "Major" Hibbs, Co. A,
b. 1817
m. wife's name to be researched. Had eight children
d. 1887William Hibbs was a local blacksmith who lived in the Mt. Gilead area of Loudoun County. Along with John Underwood and Dick Moran, he was one of the earliest recruits. It is not recorded how he got involved with Mosby's Command, but his being a blacksmith might have had something to do with it.
Mosby was fond of designating the shops of pro-Southern blacksmiths as rendezvous points for his men. With this in mind, it is very possible that Hibbs blacksmith shop was designated as a rendezvous point for the original nine and that Hibbs decided to join them at that stage. Or, he might have been known to Mosby from his days on assignment in Northern Virginia with Stuart.
Because of his age and lack of military experience, the boy in the Command affectionately dubbed the 46 year old Hibbs "Major" and the nickname stuck.
According to Virgil Carrington Jones, some of the Rangers said that Hibbs had two sons off fighting with the regular army.
With Hibbs' extensive experience with horses, he was known for a remarkable ability to find feed for the command's mounts, especially in the Quaker areas of Northern Loudoun and Keen and Mewborn report that he was also nicknamed the "Chief of the Corn Detail".
Jones describes him, prior to the March 23 fight at Chantilly, as follows: "His hat, a faded felt riddled by sparks from the forge, rested sidewise on his head, above a matting of gray hair that hung low over hir forehead like a fetlock trusted with the care of a pair of small black eyes. The only part of his raiment that represented the army was an old gray military coat, held together by a strange array of buttons, only two of which bore the initials of the Confederacy."
(Presumably, he was better attired later on, as he appears on the command's clothing receipt rolls for 1864!)
In the Chantilly fight, he had his boot heel shot off and Mosby proclaimed him as the hero of the fight and gave him a horse as a reward.
He was captured on May 3, 1863 at the fight at Warrenton Junction, and sent to the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, on the site now occupied by the Supreme Court. He was paroled on June 10, the day that Mosby formally organized the command as the 43rd Battalion, and apparently managed to make it to Rectortown that day, as he was formally enrolled by Mosby in the battalion's company A fro the balance of the War.
The following day, he was wounded in the raid on Seneca Mills and sent to Petersburg Hospital with a head injury. He was back with Mosby's men the following week and took part in a number of raids thereafter. He was captured again on March 28th, 1865 at Downey's stillhouse in Loudoun Count and setn to the Federal prison at Fort McHenry, where he remained for the balance of the War and until paroled on June 9th.
Following the war, he continued to live in the area. Despite being an accomplished blacksmith, he apparently was penniless in old age, ending up in the Loudoun County Almshouse, where he died, age 70, in 1887. He is buried in the Mount Zion Church Cemetery just east of Aldie, scene of the famous raid in which he took part.
Mentions in various references:
(incomplete, more to be added)Virgil Carrington Jones, Ranger Mosby (1944)
Pps. 106, 112, 116, 132, 189, 198
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