TRAVEL
A tour of ‘Mosby’s Confederacy’ gives a taste of thefamed cavalryman’s hair-raising exploits.

By Karen M. Laski

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“They had for us all the glamour of Robin Hood and his merry men, all the courage and bravery of the ancient crusaders, the unexpectedness of benevolent pirates and the stealth of Indians.” So wrote Sam Moore, a young man from Berryville, Virginia. Such extravagant admiration for Confederate Colonel John Singleton Mosby and his Partisan Rangers continues today, more than 130 years after the end of the Civil War.

Recently, a group of 35 Civil War buffs retraced Colonel Mosby’s exploits through Virginia’s Fauquier and Loudoun counties. The trip, sponsored by the Goose Creek Association, whose members come from both counties, was billed “The Ultimate Tour of the Gray Ghost’s Confederacy.” The tour began at the Mount Zion Baptist Church, three quarters of a mile east of Gilberts Corner, a place Mosby often used as a rendezvous point. Mount Zion Church is only a footnote in the annals of Civil War history, but a significant one to Mosby fans. Church property was never involved in the fight, which took place to the east of the two-story brick building. Because the church is an easily identifiable landmark, the skirmish that took place on July 6, 1864, between Mosby’s Rangers and Union soldiers was labeled the Mount Zion fight.

Tom Evans, one of the two guides, has conducted the tour more than 200 times. In the church cemetery Evans pointed out the graves of William “Major” Hibbs and James Sinclair, two of Mosby’s Rangers. Evans could not resist telling the group about Sinclair’s strange drinking habits.

Whenever Sinclair sat down to do some serious drinking, he would have a bagful of live snakes at his side. Between swigs of whiskey, he would bite off a piece of whichever reptile took his fancy. For obvious safety reasons, the head was eaten first. “It beats potato chips,” Evans quipped.

Sinclair’s penchant for snakes was not shared by his fellow rangers, but it illustrates the type of men who were attracted to the 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry–independent, bold men who, like Mosby, disliked the routine of ordinary military life.

“I preferred being on the outposts,” said Mosby, who found garrison duty boring. The 5-foot-7-inch, 128-pound Mosby was an ordinary-looking man who seemed an unlikely candidate for the dashing, romantic figure his admirers envision. Like Robert E. Lee, Mosby opposed secession, yet joined the Confederate forces when Virginia left the Union.

Mosby’s lack of enthusiasm for the military was evident from the beginning, and no one expected such an indifferent soldier to achieve military fame. Long after Mosby’s participation in the Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, a member of his regiment commented, “There was nothing about him then to indicate what he was to be.”

Others disagreed. Brigadier General James Ewell Brown Stuart, Mosby’s mentor, sawa young man of intelligence and courage, and sent him on several scouting expeditions behind Union lines. Mosby’s intelligence reports on Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Union army may have been the reason Stuart allowed Mosby and nine men to remain in Loudoun County when he set up winter quarters near Fredericksburg.

Lee opposed partisan units, as did many old-line military officers. Too often men of questionable character with dubious motives filled the ranks of such units. When discipline broke down, the partisans often victimized the very citizens they had pledged to defend. Despite the military’s reservations, the Confederate Congress enacted a law in April 1862 that created partisan ranger units. Within a few months, partisan units ranging in size from regiments to companies were organized in eight states.

Almost 2,000 men would serve with Mosby over the next two years. Many were too young to join the regular army, yet Mosby favored these young troopers. “They haven’t sense enough to know danger when they see it, and will fight anything I tell them to,” he once noted.

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