By JOHN S. MOSBY New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1898 Copyright , 1887, BY GEO. A. JONES & CO....

In April, 1861, I was attending court at Abingdon, Va., when I met a person who had just stepped out of the telegraph office, who informed me that tremendous tidings were passing over the wires. Going in, I inquired of the operator what it was, who told me that Lincoln had issued a proclamation calling out troops. Fort Sumter had fallen two days before. The public mind was already strained to a high pitch of excitement, and it required only a spark to produce an explosion. The indignation arouse

After the first battle of Bull Run, Stuart's cavalry was engaged in performing outpost duty on our front, which extended from the falls above Washington to Occoquan, on the lower Potomac. There were no opportunities for adventurous enterprise. McClellan's army was almost in a state of siege in Washington, and his cavalry but rarely showed themselves outside his infantry picket line. We had to go on picket duty three times a week and remain twenty-four hours. The work was pretty hard; but still,

After the battle of Fredericksburg, in December, 1862, there was a lull in the storm of war. The men on the outposts along the Rappahannock had a sort of truce to hostilities, and began swapping tobacco and coffee, just as the soldiers of Wellington and Soult, on the eve of a great battle, filled their canteens from the same stream. At that time, Stuart determined to make a Christmas raid about Dumfries, which was on Hooker's line of communication with Washington. I went with him. He got many pr

It was the latter part of January, 1863, when I crossed the Rappahannock into Northern Virginia, which from that time until the close of the war was the theatre on which I conducted partisan operations. The country had been abandoned to the occupation of the Federal army the year before, when Johnston retired from Centreville, and had never been held by us afterward, except during the short time when the Confederate army was passing through in Gen. Lee's first campaign into Maryland. I told Stua

About five miles below Middleburg is the village of Aldie, where I expected that the Federal cavalry would halt. But when I got within a mile of it I met a citizen, just from the place, who told me the cavalry had passed through. With five or six men I rode forward while the others followed on more slowly. Just as I rose to the top of the hill on the outskirts of the village, I suddenly came upon two Federal cavalrymen ascending from the opposite side. Neither party had been aware of the approac

Within a few weeks after I began operations in Northern Virginia, I received accessions to my command from various sources. I have before spoken of the convalescents in the hospital at Middleburg, out of whom I got some valuable service. The Confederate government did not furnish horses to the cavalry, but paid each man forty cents a day compensation for the use of his horse. When the trooper lost his horse, or it became disabled, he was given a furlough to go to get another. A great many of thi

During the time I had been operating against the outposts of the Union army in Northern Virginia I kept up a regular correspondence with Stuart by means of couriers, and reported to him the result of every action. The base from where I operated was on its flank, and so I compelled it to present a double front. The prisoners taken were sometimes released on their paroles, but generally sent out under charge of a guard to the provost marshal at Culpepper Court House. The necessity of making the de

After the fight at Chantilly and division of the booty the men who were with me, as usual, disappeared. Of the original fifteen who had come with me from the army for temporary service, five or six had been captured one night at a dancing frolic. Beattie was not in this party when he was made a prisoner, but was captured in a fight. I gave notice of a meeting at Rector's X roads, in Loudoun County, for the 31st of March. I had no idea until I got on the ground how many men I would have to go wit

What in the newspaper slang of the day were termed "the depredations of guerillas," in the vicinity of Washington, induced the authorities there to make a change in outpost commanders. Wyndham, having played an unsuccessful game for over two months, during which time his headquarters had been raided, and his coat and hat carried off by us in his absence, had given it up in despair, and been sent to join his regiment at the front. The new person selected for the position was a major-general in th

If I had known at the time of the major-general's expedition to Fauquier all that I know now, I would not, of course, have abandoned the enterprise against the railroad. I had thought that after he struck my track at Salem, he was really in pursuit of me, although he only followed at a terrapin's pace. I could not have anticipated that a major-general, starting out to win his spurs, would retreat as soon as he got in sight of the object he was in search of. I had disbanded my men, with instructi

At this time Gen. Lee was making the preliminary movement of the Gettysburg campaign up the left bank of the Rappahannock, while Hooker moved on a parallel line on the other. Pleasanton's cavalry corps was massed on the river, near Rappahannock station, about fifty miles from Washington, which was now covered by Hooker's army. In compliance with my request, Stuart sent me a small mountain howitzer by Beattie. A brigade of cavalry and one of infantry were lying between Manassas and Catlett's stat

I now turned my attention once more to the troops guarding the line of the Potomac and the defences of Washington. I was afraid that if I continued my attacks on the railroad and in the vicinity of Hooker's camps, the cavalry division of Stahel would be released from doing guard duty, and sent to the front on the Rappahannock. 4 So on June 3, only three days after I had been routed and my howitzer captured near Greenwich, I collected thirty or forty men and started once more for Fairfax. The cav

Stuart had now received his final instructions from General Lee, authorizing him to move into Maryland, around the rear of the enemy and between him and Washington. He was likewise instructed to do them all the damage he could on his way. With his transportation destroyed and communications broken, Hooker would be seriously embarrassed in pursuing General Lee, or probably forced to fall back for supplies, or to defend the capital against this demonstration. In the meantime, while Hooker was thus

Soon after the outbreak of war in the spring of 1861 the First Regiment of Virginia Cavalry was organized with J. E. B. Stuart as colonel. He was then just twenty-eight years of age, a native of Virginia and a graduate of West Point. As lieutenant of cavalry he had had some experience in Indian warfare in the West in which he had been wounded; and in the raid of John Brown on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry had acted as aide to Colonel (afterwards General) Robert E. Lee. The First Vi