“Mosby’s Confederacy” encompassed almost 125 square miles in the Piedmont region of Fauquier and Loudoun counties. The tour’s sponsor, the Goose Creek Association, focuses its efforts in the same area. The association promotes historic preservation, orderly growth and conservation of natural resources. Founded in 1970, the group has never lost a battle, according to President Janet Whitehouse–a record unmatched by Mosby. “The countryside is essentially what it was during the Civil War,” Whitehouse noted. “It’s a treasure.”

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As the tour bus made its way down secluded country lanes, past open farmland and rolling pastures, it was obvious that the terrain favored guerrilla warfare. A lone sentry could sit astride his horse on a hilltop and see for miles. Forests provided natural cover, and the ubiquitous stone walls gave temporary refuge.

The people of Virginia may have been Mosby’s greatest asset. Jeffry D. Wert, author of Mosby’s Rangers, wrote, “When Mosby came to Virginia, he made his mission theirs and gave shape to people’s lives for over two years.” The rangers could not have operated without the cooperation and assistance of local citizens.

“Jeb” Stuart once cautioned Mosby to “not have any established headquarters anywhere but in the saddle.” Accordingly, Mosby and his rangers lived in “safe houses” throughout the region. Many had hiding places–trapdoors and secret wall panels that enabled them to go undetected when houses were searched by Union soldiers.

Hathaway House, the former home of James and Elizabeth Hathaway, was one of these places. Mosby’s wife, Pauline, and their children had joined him at the three-story brick house northeast of Salem (now Marshall) in March 1863. Their presence did not go unnoticed by an informant.

On the night of June 11, a detail of men from the 1st New York Cavalry was sent to Hathaway House to look for Mosby. Each room was searched, but all the soldiers found was a pair of spurs in Pauline’s bedroom. Rather than leave empty-handed, the New Yorkers arrested Hathaway and left with their prisoner.

Mosby had crawled out the bedroom window and hung from a limb of a large black walnut tree next to the house. Had any of the soldiers below bothered to look up, Mosby would have been discovered. The tree is still standing, but the limb is gone.

When the current owners, Jimmy and Sally Young, moved in, they doubted the story until tourists started showing up. In cars and by buses, people came to see the huge old walnut where Mosby had clung more than a century ago. Whatever doubts remained were put to rest when their daughter-in-law’s uncle, Virgil Carrington Jones, author of Ranger Mosby, confirmed the tale.

Throughout the tour, Evans pointed out a number of structures that had harbored wounded rangers or had been used as rendezvous sites. Stuart met with Mosby at Middleburg’s Red Fox Inn (then the Beveridge House) on several occasions, and a second-floor dining room is named in Stuart’s honor. Unlike the Red Fox Inn, many buildings remain in private hands and are not accessible to the public.

Over 80 percent of Mosby’s Rangers were Virginians, and that may explain the overwhelming support he received from local citizens. A Massachusetts cavalryman summarized the situation this way: “Every farmhouse in this section was a refuge for guerrillas, and every farmer was an ally of Mosby, and every farmer’s son was with him, or in the Confederate Army.”

Quarters were easier to secure than horses–the rangers’ lifeline. Most of the men had two horses, and Mosby reportedly kept six. To evade capture and effectively employ the element of surprise, the rangers moved constantly. Demolishing bridges, destroying railroad tracks and robbing trains took their toll on horseflesh.

Local farmers supplied some mounts, but most were taken from Union soldiers. When Mosby’s Rangers raided the Fairfax Court House on March 9, 1863, they captured 30 soldiers, two captains, Brig. Gen. Edwin Stoughton and 58 horses. Upon hearing the news, Abraham Lincoln remarked, “I can make brigadier generals but I can’t make horses.”

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