Historical fiction; Mosby, John Singleton, 1833-1916 -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
The next night, Mosby stayed out of Fairfax County to allow the
excitement to die down a little, but the night after, he and his men,
accompanied by Underwood, raided a post where the Little River
Turnpike crossed Cub Run. Then, after picking up a two-man road patrol
en route, they raided another post near Fryingpan Church. This time
they brought back fourteen prisoners and horses.
In all, he and his sextet had captured nineteen prisoners and twenty
horses. But Mosby still wasn't satisfied. What he wanted was a few
more men and orders to operate behind the Union army on a permanent
basis. So, after paroling the catch of the night before, he told John
Underwood to get busy gathering information and establishing contacts,
and he took his six men back to Culpepper, reporting his activities to
Stuart and claiming that under his existing orders he had not felt
justified in staying away from the army longer. At the same time, he
asked for a larger detail and orders to continue operating in northern
Virginia.
In doing so, he knew he was taking a chance that Stuart would keep him
at Culpepper, but as both armies had gone into winter quarters after
Fredericksburg with only a minimum of outpost activity, he reasoned
that Stuart would be willing to send him back. As it happened, Stuart
was so delighted with the success of Mosby's brief activity that he
gave him fifteen men, all from the First Virginia Cavalry, and orders
to operate until recalled. On January 18, Mosby was back at
Middleburg, ready to go to work in earnest.
As before, he scattered his men over the countryside, quartering them
on the people. This time, before scattering them, he told them to meet
him at Zion Church, just beyond the gap at Aldie, on the night of the
28th. During the intervening ten days, he was not only busy gathering
information but also in an intensive recruiting campaign among the
people of upper Fauquier and lower Loudoun Counties.
* * * * *
In this last, his best selling-point was a recent act of the
Confederate States Congress called the Scott Partisan Ranger Law. This
piece of legislation was, in effect, an extension of the principles of
prize law and privateering to land warfare. It authorized the
formation of independent cavalry companies, to be considered part of
the armed forces of the Confederacy, their members to serve without
pay and mount themselves, in return for which they were to be entitled
to keep any spoil of war captured from the enemy. The terms "enemy"
and "spoil of war" were defined so liberally as to cover almost
anything not the property of the government or citizens of the
Confederacy. There were provisions, also, entitling partisan companies
to draw on the Confederate government for arms and ammunition and
permitting them to turn in and receive payment for any spoil which
they did not wish to keep for themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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