John S. Mosby and Fitzhugh Lee

Lee did not like the fact that Mosby took Union General Stoughton captive. They were good friends before the war. Or so Mosby believed. He said that Lee snubbed him when Mosby brought the general in. He said Lee snubbed him and it made him mad.
Thanks for your reply. That is what Wert said but he indicated that there was no love lost between them before then. I shall have to do some digging, I guess if I want to know all the gory details. From what I have read, Stoughton's troops were not sorry to have lost him.:giggle:
 
I would also suppose that Lee didn't appreciate Mosby's noted disdain for rank and ceremony either: For example, when Mosby, who had been uncharacteristically careless and gotten himself captured in Summer, 1862, upon his release and exchange on the Peninsula, had no compunction about taking himself directly to Lee's uncle Robert and reporting that he had seen Federal troops of the Ninth Corps on steamers bypassing Fortress Monroe and instead heading for Washington, D.C., proof that McClellan's Peninsula Campaign was over. Also, Mosby in his early thirties was older than most of the rank-and-file cavalrymen and the same age as his commanding officer JEB Stuart, who although Mosby liked and respected he usually approached on more or less equal terms.
 
I would also suppose that Lee didn't appreciate Mosby's noted disdain for rank and ceremony either: For example, when Mosby, who had been uncharacteristically careless and gotten himself captured in Summer, 1862, upon his release and exchange on the Peninsula, had no compunction about taking himself directly to Lee's uncle Robert and reporting that he had seen Federal troops of the Ninth Corps on steamers bypassing Fortress Monroe and instead heading for Washington, D.C., proof that McClellan's Peninsula Campaign was over. Also, Mosby in his early thirties was older than most of the rank-and-file cavalrymen and the same age as his commanding officer JEB Stuart, who although Mosby liked and respected he usually approached on more or less equal terms.
Thanks, James, that puts a different spin on things.
 
Mosby became a Republican in Virginia, got shot at, and then became a consul in Hong Kong because that was a lot safer than being a Republican in Virginia!

I am curious though, why did Mosby become a Republican?
This is from Wikipedia: Alerts

Mosby also told Grant he believed vehemently that election of Horace Greeley (a long-time editor of the New York Tribune detested in the South) would be worse for the South because the men surrounding him were worse than those surrounding his old benefactor Grant. 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. After Greeley became the Democratic party's nominee in July, Mosby became Grant's campaign manager in Virginia, and an active Republican, although he also made sure the Republicans would not run a candidate against his friend and fellow Warrenton attorney Eppa Hunton, who campaigned and won as a Democrat.[45] In his autobiography Grant stated, "Since the close of the war, I have come to know Colonel Mosby personally and somewhat intimately. He is a different man entirely from what I supposed. ... He is able and thoroughly honest and truthful."[46]

Soon, Mosby had become one of Grant's favorites and was bringing federal patronage jobs to local Virginians, although initially he did not hold any federal job. He tried to make a rapprochement between President Grant and Virginia Governor James Kemper, a Confederate Major General and Conservative elected the following year and whom Mosby also supported. However, that failed. His Republican political activity diminished Mosby's popularity in Warrenton; many considered him a turncoat. Many Southerners still considered Grant "the enemy". Mosby received death threats, his boyhood home was burned down, and at least one attempt was made to assassinate him. Later reflecting on the animosity shown to him by his fellow Virginians, Mosby stated in a May 1907 letter that "There was more vindictiveness shown to me by the Virginia people for my voting for Grant than the North showed to me for fighting four years against him."[47]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Mosby


Hope that helps.
 
Always found it interesting how certain steadfast southern confederates like Mosby ended up going with the Republicans after the war. Of course, Longstreet always comes to mind as does Roger Pryor, a hard line fire eater who was actually given the chance to fire the first shot at Fort Sumter (he declined).
 
Always found it interesting how certain steadfast southern confederates like Mosby ended up going with the Republicans after the war. Of course, Longstreet always comes to mind as does Roger Pryor, a hard line fire eater who was actually given the chance to fire the first shot at Fort Sumter (he declined).
I think that they thought it better to work within the system to help the South recover than to work against it.
 
I would also suppose that Lee didn't appreciate Mosby's noted disdain for rank and ceremony either: For example, when Mosby, who had been uncharacteristically careless and gotten himself captured in Summer, 1862, upon his release and exchange on the Peninsula, had no compunction about taking himself directly to Lee's uncle Robert and reporting that he had seen Federal troops of the Ninth Corps on steamers bypassing Fortress Monroe and instead heading for Washington, D.C., proof that McClellan's Peninsula Campaign was over. Also, Mosby in his early thirties was older than most of the rank-and-file cavalrymen and the same age as his commanding officer JEB Stuart, who although Mosby liked and respected he usually approached on more or less equal terms.

It may have broken protocol, but it was vital information that needed to get to Lee and the high command as soon as possible.
 
It may have broken protocol, but it was vital information that needed to get to Lee and the high command as soon as possible.
It also paved the way for what was apparently a casual relationship between the two later in the war and afterward. Remember the famous story told by Mosby about meeting George Pickett in Richmond after the war and Pickett requesting Mosby accompany him to visit Lee, probably because Pickett knew of Mosby's relationship with Lee. According to Mosby it was after that when Pickett allegedly referred to Lee as being That old man who massacred my division at Gettysburg, whereupon Mosby replied, But he gave you immortality by doing so, or words to that effect. I got the idea upon reading the Wert biography which I reviewed here: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/mosbys-rangers-by-jeffrey-d-wert.140418/ that by late 1864 into 1865 that with the defeat of the main Confederate field armies in the West and the Shenandoah Valley and Lee's army hemmed in at Richmond-Petersburg that Mosby and his Rangers effectively assumed the mantle of former heroes such as Stuart and Ashby in the minds of those still faithful to the Cause.
 
Though I tend to favor the boys in blue. The gray ghost was my boyhood hero and started my interest im the ACW. Mosby, Francis Marion, Davey Crockett and the Scarecrow.My heroes.
Since you're still fairly new to the forums you might enjoy some of my previous threads:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/classics-illustrated-the-gray-ghost.139658/

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/a-trip-through-mosbys-confederacy.139767/

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/john-singleton-mosby-in-photographs-and-portraits.139942/
 
It also paved the way for what was apparently a casual relationship between the two later in the war and afterward. Remember the famous story told by Mosby about meeting George Pickett in Richmond after the war and Pickett requesting Mosby accompany him to visit Lee, probably because Pickett knew of Mosby's relationship with Lee. According to Mosby it was after that when Pickett allegedly referred to Lee as being That old man who massacred my division at Gettysburg, whereupon Mosby replied, But he gave you immortality by doing so, or words to that effect. I got the idea upon reading the Wert biography which I reviewed here: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/mosbys-rangers-by-jeffrey-d-wert.140418/ that by late 1864 into 1865 that with the defeat of the main Confederate field armies in the West and the Shenandoah Valley and Lee's army hemmed in at Richmond-Petersburg that Mosby and his Rangers effectively assumed the mantle of former heroes such as Stuart and Ashby in the minds of those still faithful to the Cause.
James, I read somewhere that that encounter with Pickett and Mosby never happened as they were not there at the same time. Supposedly Mosby made that up. I'll have to look for that tonight.
 
Here is an article from the Pickett Society the does not discount the meeting, but contends that Mosby may have exaggerated the story.
COL. MOSBY'S CLAIM UNSUBSTANTIATED

TWO INCIDENTS CASTING A SHADOW UPON THE CHARACTER OF
GENERAL GEORGE PICKETT BOTH ORIGINATED WITH
COL. JOHN MOSBY


AUTHORS REPEAT MOSBY'S CLAIMS

COL. MOSBY WAS NOT AT GETTYSBURG OR APPOMATTOX

You can read more here: http://www.pickettsociety.com/mosby.html
 
In his book, Rebel: The Life and Times of John Singleton Mosby, Kevin Siepel different spin on the story, that is interesting. He places he encounter in Lexington, not Richmond, and ststes that Pickett coaxed him into returning to see Lee against his own wishes, and after words said the line about immortality to Pickett in an angry tone and walked angrily away from him.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=Ee...ECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=mosby and pickett&f=false

 
Back
Top