John Singleton Mosby (1833 - 1916)

Ancestors

Biography

COLONEL IN CONFEDERATE ARMY, THE GREY GHOST. LAWYER, WORKED FOR THE FEDERAL GOVT. TILL HIS DEATH.

Mosby in a tree From Loudoun history.

Mosby at Rector House, 1461 Atoka Rd., Atoka, VA

To escape capture by Federal troops, Mosby may have climbed out a window of Rector House and hidden in the branches of a walnut tree.

For Civil War enthusiasts, one living tree in the Virginia Piedmont — the "Mosby walnut"— stands out from all the others. Onto one of its far-reaching branches the famed Confederate partisan ranger John Singleton Mosby climbed from a bedroom window and, for a half-hour, balanced himself while a Union cavalry contingent searched the house.

Virgil Carrington "Pat" Jones first put the story in print in his 1944 classic, "Ranger Mosby." He had heard the tale from Mosby's daughter, Stuart Mosby Coleman, whom he interviewed at her Warrenton home. After their conversation about the event, Coleman gave Jones a letter from Mosby to his wife, Pauline. The letter, now in the Front Royal Confederate Memorial Museum, told how Mosby happened to be out on that limb. The letter — datelined March 16, 1863, "near Middleburg" — illustrates Mosby the publicist.

His latest raid had occurred a week earlier: Penetrating Union lines at Fairfax Courthouse in the dark of early morning, Mosby and 29 men captured Union Brig. Gen. Edwin Stoughton, two captains, 30 enlisted men and more than 50 horses without firing a shot. Undetected, the marauders then rode to Warrenton with their take. Rector House sign

"I send you two newspapers containing accounts of my late affair," Mosby wrote to his wife, Pauline. "I also want you to show the papers to Genl. [J.E.B.] Stuart — I enclose you $50. Come on immediately. Buy me up some Richmond papers containing Genl. Stuart's order & anything with reference to my recent foray." The letter then outlined that his wife, at Culpeper Court House, would be escorted by Sgt. Maj. Harry Hatcher to the home of James and Elizabeth Hathaway, "a very nice place about four miles from White Plains [now The Plains]. . . . I will meet you there."

Or he may have climbed from a window at "Western View," the Hathaway home

The Hathaways had named their stuccoed brick home "Western View" for its vista of the Blue Ridge. The house was just a few years old, built in the then-fashionable Greek Revival style. Forty feet to the home's northeast stood a huge black walnut tree, more than a century old. After the war, old-timers recalled that its bark provided dye for Confederate uniforms and that its nuts fed soldiers. James Hathaway was a prosperous farmer who sold agricultural equipment in the Landmark area southeast of Middleburg. He and Elizabeth had four young children at home. Then as today, "Western View" was on an isolated dirt road -- an unlikely spot, thought Mosby, for a visit by a Union raiding party. Had Mosby been in the area more than 2 1/2 months, he might have known that James Hathaway was frequently bantered about as an important personage in upper Fauquier County -- a man with an imposing and stylish new home. Officers on both sides often stayed in such edifices. Someone disclosed where Hathaway lived to a contingent of the 1st New York cavalry, led by Capt. William H. Boyd. (It's worth noting here that, in describing the Union foray at "Western View," Jones's informants -- Stuart Coleman and her siblings Pauline and Beverly -- either provided vivid details or Jones took liberties of language that bordered on historical fiction -- evident in other episodes in his book.)

Jones described the Federals' entry thus: "Old Man Hathaway [he was 50] pulled back the door, lamp in hand, and faced the intruders. The Yankee captain pushed into the wide hallway. . . . Then began a careful search. . . . In an upstairs chamber he found a white-faced young woman in robe and nightdress, trying impatiently to calm the fears of two sleepy youngsters. Parts of a gray uniform lay near the bed, rumpled, but neither the owner nor his boots could be located." The Mosby children May and Beverly were then toddlers. Would they have been taken into a war zone? Would a fastidious officer such as Mosby have left his uniform lying around? Describing the Union party's departure, Jones wrote: "The command to ride on was given. At that moment the agile Mosby swung lightly from the limb of the tree to his bedroom window, pulled himself through and felt for the bed in the dark." That black walnut limb is no longer there, but its scar is.

Walnut tree at Western View that may have enabled John Singleton Mosby to escape capture by Federal troops

Jimmy Young, whose family has owned "Western View" since 1937, told me some weeks ago that as a boy he crawled out onto the limb's replacement. That member, too, survives only as a knot on the massive trunk. Onlookers today can see a third sturdy limb, again nearly touching that bedroom. The onlookers have been steadily visiting since the 1940s. In 1981, when James Moyer took a busload out from Fairfax County to view the tree, among the group were Adm. Beverly Mosby Coleman, Stuart's son, and an elderly female descendant of the Hathaways. Both related their parents' telling them of Mosby's escape. In August 1981, Fairfax County forester Richard Salzer measured the Mosby walnut. The trunk at 4 1/2 feet above the ground measured 15 feet around. Its height was 87 feet, its spread 105 feet. Jeff Kirwan, natural resources specialist at Virginia Tech, wrote to me last week to say that the Salzer measurement makes the Mosby walnut the seventh-largest black walnut tree in the commonwealth. The largest is in Colonial Williamsburg; the second largest is near Waterford in Loudoun County.

On one of my many visits to the Mosby walnut, Young told me that expenses to care for the tree — pruning, stabilizing and feeding it — cost more than the tax on his farm. To keep the upper limbs in place, Young has positioned adjustable steel cables that reach from one side of the spread to another. A lightning arrester grounds the cables. Young will not permit coring to determine the hardwood's age. Today's typical nuts are small and inedible. But every once in a while, down drops a reminder of yesterday. Young has planted several, but none has taken root. "After all," he told me, "the tree is in its dotage." (Copyright © Eugene Scheel.0

Memories of John Singleton Mosby

Patricia Prickett Hickin, 8 June 2015

My father, Minter Jackson Prickett,knew Mosby for a short time in 1914-1915. He told me several stories about him and made a note of several others in his copy of Virgil Carrington Jones's biography, Ranger Mosby.

My father's great uncle was Fountain Beatie/Beattie, who was Mosby's best friend and right-hand man in the war. Fount was living in Alexandria when my father went to Washington to work in 1914. His wife had died but his daughters would often have Mosby for Sunday dinner and frequently my father would be invited as well.

Mosby was an old man at the time and my father's recollections were not very flattering:

Ï knew him when he was old, decrepit, feeble, and a failure--and dirty and sloven. I always felt in those days the only square meals he got were when Uncle Fount invited him over from Washington for an occasional Sunday dinner -- that was in 1914-1915.

What terrible table manners he had!

And the sleeves of his long underwear stuck out inches from his cuffs and got further soiled in his plate. Here was the wreck of a famous man!

--

He "lived" the Civil War ever after for never again did he attain the success and renown he won in his "Confederacy."

--

"General" Mosby was over at Uncle Fount Beattie's home on N. Peyton St. Alexandria one Sunday. After dinner all the "men folks" assembled in Uncle Fount's room upstairs. It is my memory that in addition to Mosby and Uncle Fount there was a "Captain Chinn" (?) present who had been also one of Mosby's Rangers. Mosby and Minter Beattie were there, my brother and I. Mosby dominated the conversation which was, of course, about his Civil War exploits. Once in a while he would demand confirmation of his memories by saying, "Wasn't that so, Fount?" "Wasn't that so, Chinn?" and the two old men would reply, "Yes, General; Yes, General" in tired, bored voices. I had heard the same stories on previous occasions, but finally he told a story that was new to me, and again he asked "Wasn't that so, Fount?" "Wasn't that so, Chinn?" and the two old men again replied, "Yes, General; Yes, General" in tired, bored voices. But this time, Mosby said, "You're damned liars, both of you. There wasn't a word of truth in what I just said.!"

Later Mosby began to boast about his ancestors living in their feudal Scottish castles. They stole a lot of cattle, he bragged, always driving off the herds from other estates. "But I'm proud they were cattle thieves," said Mosby, "because stealing cattle was a gentleman's occupation in those days." They rode out from their castles, he said, and robbed their fellow barons.

-- In 1914 I went to Washington to work and had a room on Iowa Circle in Cousin Robert Beattie's home. Mosby had a room nearby, and frequently appeared on the sidewalk clad only in an old dirty flannel bathrobe and worn bed-room slippers, his one good eye blazing balefully. His appearances thus attired were quite a trial to Cousin Robert's wife as she and her household felt a responsibility for the old eagle.

Sources

• Wikipedia Biography on John S. Mosby [1]

• Civil War Woman - Biography on Pauline Mosby [2]

• "United States Census, 1850", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M882-Y3V : Tue Jul 18 01:59:21 UTC 2023), Entry for Alfred D Mosby and Virginia Mosby, 1850.

• "Tennessee Marriages, 1796-1950", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XD3P-F4X : 27 January 2020), John S. Masby, 1856.

• "United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M411-95V : Mon Jul 17 23:40:23 UTC 2023), Entry for John S Mosby and Pauline Mosby, 1860.

• "United States Confederate Officers Card Index, 1861-1865", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:73GC-M7W2 : 6 September 2019), John Singleton Mosby, 1861-1865.

• "United States Census, 1870", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFLY-2J4 : Tue Aug 22 00:41:54 UTC 2023), Entry for John S Mosby and Paulina Mosby, 1870.

• Audio Book - The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby: https://youtu.be/busan9xz1r0?si=MnXDxtCznRcO42h-

• "United States Census, 1910", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MKLG-F4W : Tue Jul 18 15:39:30 UTC 2023), Entry for John S Mosby, 1910.

• "District of Columbia Deaths, 1874-1961," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV37-P7SK : accessed 22 August 2023), John S. Mosby, 30 May 1916, District of Columbia, United States; citing reference ID rn 230245, District Records Center, Washington D.C.; FHL microfilm 2,115,877.

• Find a Grave Memorial for John Singleton Mosby Sr. [3]

• Eric Buckland, "Legends on Horseback," America's Civil War, Vol. 33, no. 3, (July 2020): 26.

• * America's Civil War - July 2020