Secrets of the Late Rebellion, Now Revealed for the First TimeFreese, Jacob R.
History
Secrets of the Late Rebellion, Now Revealed for the First Time
Freese, Jacob R.
United States -- Politics and government -- 1861-1865
In pursuance of the commanding officer's orders, the six Union officers
were next day forwarded, as prisoners of war, to Richmond; while Moseby
himself soon after reported at the Adjutant General's office under
arrest, to await such action as the authorities might think proper in
his case. And thus, and thus, were the lives of six more men saved from
the infernal clutch and ravenous maw of this hyena in human form.
Not many days after, the same officer who had released from Moseby's
clutch the six Union officers above spoken of, chanced to be riding
along a public highway when he observed, at considerable distance off,
in a deep gully, a man entirely naked, dodging from place to place, as
if in fear or distress. The sight was so strange that the officer turned
his horse's head and quickly rode to the place where he had first seen
the man. Here he found not the one only, but three, all entirely naked,
and all huddled together, as if to protect themselves from each other's
sight. The officer demanded what it all meant. It was some moments
before the men could answer at all, but when they did, they told the
Confederate officer that they were three Union officers who had been
gobbled up the day before by Moseby's guerillas, stripped of everything
they had on earth, even to their shirts, and then left in that woods or
ravine to do as best they might, with the warning, however, that if they
made the least alarm they would be again caught and either hung or shot;
that they had feared to approach any house in their nude state, lest
they might be shot at as ghosts or wild men; that they had not had a
morsel of food for a long time, and that even death was preferable
to longer enduring such suspense and torture. The officer had seen
inhumanity in almost every possible shape, but this, he said, was a
refinement of cruelty which shocked him more than anything he had ever
seen before. He went to a house, not far off, and obtained shirts for
two, and a woman's chemise for one, with such other clothing as they
chanced to have. Thus, partially dressed, he then took them to the
house, where they remained while the officer went to other houses of the
neighborhood to get enough additional clothing to cover their nakedness.
He then had them accompany him to the nearest military command, where he
turned them over as regular prisoners of war. And thus were three more
clutched from the grasp of these bloodthirsty hyenas. Clutched from
death, too, for had they not been seen and rescued by this officer, they
would, in all human probability, have been sought for by the guerillas
next day, and either shot or hung.
There was no month, and probably but few weeks or days, during the
entire war that Moseby's guerillas were not planning or executing some
villanous enterprise against the Union army or Union men; but we have
room only for a few more, and these we will select from his operations
in the Shenandoah Valley and vicinity during the summer and fall of
1864.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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