John S. Mosby

At a December 16th, 2024 court hearing, U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land dismissed the foundation's request to restore Mosby's name to the memorial and hall of fame.

Joseph Johnson reviewed the evidence and pardoned Mosby on December 23, 1853, as a Christmas present, and the state legislature rescinded the $500 (~$18,312 in 2023) fine at its next session.

During a brief stopover at Fort Monroe he detected an unusual buildup of shipping in Hampton Roads and learned they were carrying thousands of troops under Ambrose Burnside from North Carolina on their way to reinforce John Pope in the Northern Virginia Campaign.

Stuart led raids behind Union lines in Prince William, Fairfax and Loudoun counties, seeking to disrupt federal communications and supplies between Washington, D.C., and Fredericksburg, Virginia, and provision their own forces.

[34] The partisan rangers proved controversial among Confederate army regulars, who thought they encouraged desertion as well as morale problems in the countryside as potential soldiers would favor sleeping in their own (or friendly) beds and capturing booty to the hardships and privations of traditional military campaigns.

"[40] After informing General Robert E. Lee and Confederate Secretary of War James A. Seddon of his intention to respond in kind, Mosby ordered seven Union prisoners, chosen by lot, to be executed in retaliation on November 6, 1864, at Rectortown, Virginia.

One numbered lot fell to a drummer boy who was excused because of his age, and Mosby's men held a second drawing for a man to take his place.

Then, on the way to the place of execution a prisoner recognized Masonic regalia on the uniform of Confederate Captain Montjoy, a recently inducted Freemason then returning from a raid.

[43] On November 11, 1864, Mosby wrote to Philip Sheridan, the commander of Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley, requesting that both sides resume treating prisoners with humanity.

The commander of the Union detachment, Maj. Douglas Frazar of the 13th New York Cavalry, entered the house and—not knowing Mosby's identity—inspected the wound and pronounced it mortal.

[47] Rather than following his men to Winchester, Mosby instead rode south with several officers, planning to fight on with General Joseph E. Johnston's army in North Carolina.

Some proposed that they return to Richmond and capture the Union officers who were occupying the White House of the Confederacy, but Mosby rejected the plan, telling them, "Too late!

Nonetheless, during the year after receiving his parole, Mosby often found himself harassed by occupying Union forces, arrested on petty or trumped-up charges, until his wife and young son Revardy, after being rebuffed by President Andrew Johnson despite their mutual kinship ties, met General Grant in January 1866 and secured a handwritten exemption from arrest and guarantee of safe conduct.

A few days later, Massachusetts Congressman Benjamin Butler presented an amnesty bill for former Confederates, as Mosby had suggested in that meeting, and soon President Grant signed it into law.

He tried to make a rapprochement between President Grant and Virginia Governor James L. Kemper, a Confederate Major General and Conservative elected the following year and whom Mosby also supported.

"[55] After the deaths of his wife Pauline and infant son Alfred in mid-1876, Mosby decided to move his family to Washington, D.C., but had difficulty finding enough legal business to support them.

[56] Mosby had to leave his children in the care of relatives, but this proved to be the first in a series of other federal government jobs and postings, many fighting rampant fraud in politically volatile situations.

Mosby thought Bailey had almost doubled his salary over the previous eight years by embezzlement and kickbacks, and stopped charging for shipboard examinations (which he personally conducted).

However, Bailey was confirmed as consul in Shanghai before Grant's return home, and newspapers had begun publishing stories about Mosby's inappropriate attire, the start of a campaign to minimize him as a "crackpot."

By January 1880, Grant and journalist John R. Young (who would become consul at Shanghai two years later) briefed Secretary of State William M. Evarts about Sickels and Torrey.

Still, as 1880 began, Mosby won a slander lawsuit brought against him in Hong Kong by Peter Smith, the sailors' boardinghouse keeper associated with ex-consul Bailey, reporting that he defended himself to the applause of jury and spectators, as well as laughter of the distinguished judge.

Thus he remained in exile and dealt with the implications of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the growing opium trade and the brewing war between France and China.

Although Mosby hated the desk work, he twice returned to Washington, D.C., to argue before the United States Supreme Court—once based on the consul fees he had remitted to the Treasury (and which the claims court found him entitled to) and once for the railroad.

Mosby also wrote articles for Eastern newspapers about his escapades during the Civil War, and traveled to New England on a speaking tour where he met Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. & Sr. (father and son).

When witnesses refused to come forward to testify about illegal fencing for fear of retaliation, Mosby upheld the law by first sending notices to the affected landowner.

The Pawnee Cattle Company capitulated in Colorado, so Mosby moved on to western Nebraska, where he learned the land agent actually lived in Iowa and failed to supervise the range.

The local judge sentenced them to $300 fine apiece and six hours in custody, which they spent celebrating at the Omaha Cattlemen's Club, and which led President Roosevelt to fire both the U.S. attorney and U.S.

He also secured an indictment of McAlester attorneys George Mansfield, John F. McMurray and Melvin Cornish for misappropriation of Indian Trust funds, but his superior Russell thought the evidence insufficient and ultimately dropped the charges two years later.

A recent comprehensive study of the Stuart controversy, written by Eric J. Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi, called Mosby's work a "tour de force".

In June 1907, Mosby wrote a letter to Samuel "Sam" Chapman, in which he expressed his displeasure over people, namely George Christian, downplaying and denying the importance of slavery in its causing the American Civil War.

Mosby during the American Civil War
Mosby in the early 1860s
Mosby's Rangers. Top row (left to right): Lee Herverson, Ben Palmer, John Puryear, Tom Booker, Norman Randolph, Frank Raham.# Second row: Robert Blanks Parrott, John Troop, John W. Munson, John S. Mosby, Newell, Neely, Quarles.# Third row: Walter Gosden, Harry T. Sinnott, Butler, Gentry.
Captain Montjoy , wood engraving 1867 [ 35 ]
Mosby's former residence on Logan Circle in Washington, D.C. , in August 2008
Mosby and John S. Russell, his former lieutenant
Mosby's grave in Warrenton, Virginia
"War Loses Its Romance", inscription of a military quotation by Mosby at Veterans Memorial at the Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania Courthouse in Scranton