Pvt. John Underwood, Co. A.
b. 1838, in Maryland, son of John and Elizabeth Underwood
m. Dec 11, 1861 to Margaret Trammel
d. October 1863John Underwood was the first recruit to Mosby's Command, volunteering to help the partisan ranger shortly after Mosby commenced operations in early 1863 with the original detachment of nine men from the 1st Virginia Cavalry.
A resident of the Frying Pan area of Fairfax County, and was an avid hunter and outdoorsman and was said to "know every deer trail and footpath" in the county. This knowledge would prove crucial to Mosby's early successes, as neither he nor the men detailed from the First Virginia had yet acquired this kind of local knowledge.
He was a neighbor and acquaintance of Stuart's key intelligence link in the area, Laura Ratcliffe, and it is quite possible that she had some role in recruiting him, as Mosby had brooched the subject of being left behind with a detachment of men while at the Ratcliffe's following Stuart's successful Christmas Day raid on Burke Station.
According to the 43rd Battalion regimental history (Keen and Mewborn) Underwood was listed in the 1860 Fairfax County Census as a farmer, aged 21.
In his book, Partisan Life with Mosby, (1867) John Scott describes underwood as "short and thickset, with a shock of white hair, which stood erect in unrestrained independence. His whole appearance was that of a wild man, but his eyes, ever in motion, indicated a watchfulness and an intelligent mind."
The engagements in which he is documented as taking part include Mosby's first raids on January 5-6, 1863 -- the attack on the picket post at Frying Pan Church and the attack on pickets on the Little River Turnpike near Cub run and near Chantilly; the January 26 fight at Chantilly - which was the first engagement for the men in the second detachment 15 from the 1st Virginia; the February 11 scout to Herndon Station, the Febraury 26 attack on a picket post at Thompson's Corner northeast of Chantilly, the March 17 Herndon Station raid, the March 22 fight at Chantilly and April 1 fight at Miskelll's Farm. He led numerous scouting parties for Mosby, including a scout to near Fairfax Courthouse on April 19th and took part in most of the major events of the command in 1863 until his death in October of that year.
He was killed in action in October, by a deserter from the Confederate Army near Oatlands in Loudoun County and is buried in the Sharon Cemetery in Middleburg. The exact date and location are not known, other than the fact that it occurred after Mosby's attack on a wagon train near New Baltimore and before the Rangers captures two correspondents of the New York Herald on October 31.
Relationships to Other Rangers:
Samuel L. Underwood, a year younger than John, followed his older brother into Mosby's Command sometime before May 1863. At the same time, or shortly thereafter, Bushrod Underwood also joined. Bushrod, who was 5 years younger than John was some relation -- either a brother, cousin or possibly a nephew, as some reserachers have opined that he was the son of an older sister of John and Samuel. His legal parent / guardians were John and Samuel's parents however, and Virgil Carrington Jones describes him as a brother.
Mentions in various references:
(incomplete, more to be added)Virgil Carrington Jones, Ranger Mosby (1944)
pps 74, 75, 81, 82, 84, 90, 91, 92, 95, 97, 102, 106,107, 116, 138, 153, 166, 185Links Online:
Jon Pardo has a picture of John Underwood's gravestone in the Sharon Cemetery in Middleburg on his Mosbys Rangers memorial website.
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