Chapter Fifty-Six
Mosby's Confederacy
Part I
From "Ghosts in the Valley" by Dr Guy Burchett
Ohio State 1987
"Following Mosby’s appointment in January 1863 his partisans began by ranging up and down the Valley. These operations were initially hampered by the sheer number of Union troops stationed in the Valley during the winter and spring, which equated with John F. Reynolds tenure as commander of the Dept. of the Valley. With the departure of Reynolds and the bulk of his troops to join Kearny’s Spring Offensive against Richmond, and the appointment of Franz Sigel to head the Dept, the opportunities for Mosby expanded rapidly…
General Lee hoped to distracted Kearny by threatening the Union position in the Valley. With that in mind John Imboden’s brigade of cavalry was dispatched from South West Virginia to carry out more substantive attacks on Union forces in the southern Shenandoah. Mosby was instructed to rendezvous with Imboden and assist…
Mosby is widely credited with formulating the plan that lured Sir Percy Wyndham’s Division into an ambush at Rockbridge Baths. Believing he had cornered an element of Mosby’s partisans, Wyndham foolishly, given the nature of the ground, ordered a charge by both the brigades of Duffie and di Cesnola…
The tactics of the battlefields of Europe served to little advantage against Southern carbines and shotguns fired from concealment. Wyndham’s men charged into a deadly crossfire of Imboden's troopers and Mosby's partizans…
The phrase “to take a bath” emanates from Wyndham’s defeat at the Rockbridge Baths and is widely used in military and sporting circles to refer to an overconfident force/team that is soundly defeated…
The victory secured Mosby’s reputation and promotion…"
Two unfortunate Union Prisoners are questioned before Colonel Mosby
From “An Uncivil War” by Dr Guy Burchett
LSU
"Kearny’s decision to move on Richmond from the north and north west meant that he would be reliant on overland supply trains, rather than the sea borne supplies lines that had supported McClellan’s advance up the Peninsula. Those overland supply lines were vulnerable to precisely the kind of attacks in which Mosby’s, now expanded, partisan force specialised. Mosby’s moved out of the Valley into the area of northern Virginia between the District of Columbia and the rear of the Army of the Potomac. Thus was “Mosby’s Confederacy” was born…
Attempts to suppress both Mosby’s organised raids and more general irregular attacks by a handful of diehard rebels in northern Virginia proved extremely difficult for the Union. Mosby’s Confederacy stretched over four separate Departments: the Valley under Sigel, the Middle initially under Wallace and later under Couch, Washington D.C. under Heintzelman, and Kearny’s own theatre of operations…
Kearny reorganised his cavalry sending B.F. Davis’ Division north and taking Wyndham back into the Army of the Potomac. Davis was much better suited to the task. Critical supply trains were well guarded and supported by cavalry. However Davis was no more successful in engaging or capturing Mosby than his predecessor…
One of the more “unpleasant” elements of irregular warfare in the Valley and in Mosby’s Confederacy was the burning of homes in response to “rebel outrages”. Wyndham had unofficially pursued a policy of punishing those he held responsible for supporting partisans or irregulars by burning homes and farms…
Officers like Percy Wyndham, William Stebbins Fish and Hugh Judson Kilpatrick had no qualms about executing suspected bushwhackers and irregulars
Kearny’s Special Order 54 dealt with, among other things, the summary execution of rebel combatants taken under arms behind Union lines out of uniform. Some Union officers in northern Virginia took to the execution of the Order with a will, Hugh Judson Kilpatrick foremost among them...
Although Mosby’s partisans did fight in uniform, many of the irregulars in northern Virginia did not. On more than one occasion Mosby passed through a Virginia town to the spectacle of “hanged irregulars”. It was Mosby’s practice after this to hang “
house-burners and Union lynchmen”. The war had taken an ugly turn in northern Virginia…"
