The Original Nine:
In December of 1862, JEB Stuart led his cavalry troops in series of raiding operations on the rear flank of the Federal forces. This operation was successful, culminating in a Christmas day raid that led ot the capture of several mules at Burke Station.
From there they went to the Frying Pan area of Fairfax, where Stuart visited Laura Ratcliffe, a friend who was an important intelligence source for him in the area. According to John Scott's Partisan Life with Mosby (1867) at the Ratcliffe's Mosby again asked Stuart if he could be left behind with a small band to continue operations instead of going into winter quarters and Stuart indicated his agreement.
A few days later, at "Oakham", the home of Col. Hamilton Rogers, near Dover in Eastern Loudoun County, he repeated the request (cf. Mosby's Memoirs), and Stuart gave his final consent. When Stuart left on December 30, Mosby stayed behind with nine collagues from the 1st Virginia.
As this assignment was to last only a couple of weeks, it was not recorded who these original nine men were, other than the fact that it is known that Mosby's close friend and messmate from Company D, Fountain Beattie, was one of them.
It is thought that the majority of the men on this first detail may have also been from Company D.
Following the success of these early operations, Mosby and the nine men returned to the 1st Virginia's winter camp where Mosby requested a further detail. His request was granted and he set out to return to Northern Virginia with a detail of 15 men on January 18.
In his officially sanctioned history of the Battalion published in 1896, James J. Williamson lists fifteen men as having been among this second detail of January 18.
However, Hugh Keen and Horace Mewborn, in their regimental history of the 43rd Battalion have scrutinized this early list, comparing it to other original research of the period -- the muster rolls of the 1st Virginia, Yankee prison records of men from the 1st Virginia who were captured at places and on dates where men from this detail of 15 were known to have been captured, and the various mentions of men in Mosby's memoirs and other memoirs of men of the command, and in official dispatches sent by Mosby to Stuart.
The results yield a list which is somewhat different from that given by Williamson.
However, Williamson, in writing this history, interviewed a great many of his former colleagues and received information from them, including Fount Beattie, who was the most likely one to provide Williamson with the names of the first recruits. (Williamson himself did not join the command until April of 1863).
It is quite possible that Beattie, having been part of both the "Original Nine" AND of the "Original Fifteen" had gotten some fo the names mixed up, and was more inclined to remember those who had later come back to the command.
(Muster rolls and battalion records show a number of members of the First Virginia was being with Mosby by later March / early April, after the Fairfax Court House raid.)
Therefore, although we will probably never know who these original nine were, it's possible to at least form some theories based on the differences between these two lists.
For comparison purposes, go to our "The Original Fifteen" page.
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