Part 36

The "Rangers," as the name implies, were scouts and, in this highly useful capacity, served the enemies of their State with shameless ardor. But, as a body, they fought few engagements and none of a decisive nature. Their first and, perhaps, sharpest encounter happened in and around the old Baptist Church at Waterford.

The following absolution or justification is offered in the preface to the above-quoted work:

"As the name of their organization indicates, they came from a State which was arrayed in arms against the authority of the National Government. No Governor, or Senator, or Member of Congress guarded their interests; nor was any State or local bounty held forth to them as an allurement. Their enlistment in the Union Army--their country's army--was the spontaneous outgrowth of a spirit of lofty patriotism.

"As they saw their duty they were not lacking in moral courage to perform that duty; and with no lapse of years shall we ever fail to insist that the principles for which the Rangers contended were eternally right, and that their opponents were eternally wrong."

Far from being a well-ordered command with a clearly defined modus operandi, the two companies were poorly drilled, imperfectly accoutred, only aimlessly and periodically active, and, moreover, were on the point of dissolution at the outset.

Operating, for the most part, independently and in detached parties the command offered no serious menace to citizens or soldiery, though the latter were sometimes harassed and annoyed by them.

Mosby, who had greatly desired and often essayed their capture, was finally given the opportunity for which he had eagerly waited. Learning that the Rangers were encamped near Millville, W. Va. (Keyes' Switch, as it was then called), he dispatched Captain Baylor with a detachment of horse to that point.

Major Scott who, in 1867, wrote Partisan Life With Mosby, has this to say of the fight which followed: "He (Baylor) took the precaution to pass in between Halltown (where there was a brigade of infantry) and the camp. When within fifty yards of the Loudoun Rangers the order to charge was given. Two of them were killed, four wounded, and 65 taken prisoners, together with 81 horses with their equipments. The rest of the command sought refuge in the bushes. The only loss which Baylor sustained was Frank Helm, of Warrenton, who was wounded as he charged among the foremost into the camp."

The day of the capture General Stevenson, commanding at Harper's Ferry, and under whose orders the Rangers had been acting, sent the following message to General Hancock at Winchester:

Harper's Ferry, April 6, 1865.

Mosby surprised the camp of the Loudoun Rangers near Keyes' Ford and cleaned them out. He made the attack about 10 a.m....

John D. Stevenson, Brigadier-General.

When Major-General Hancock, so distinguished in the Federal Army, heard of Baylor's exploit he laughed heartily and exclaimed: "Well, that is the last of the Loudoun Rangers."

As indeed it proved to be!

Mosby's Command in its Relationship to Loudoun County.

From January, 1863, until the close of the war Colonel Mosby's partisan operations were mostly confined to the counties of Loudoun and Fauquier, this rich, pastoral country affording subsistence for his command and the Blue Ridge a haven to which to retreat when hard pressed by the superior numbers that, from time to time, were sent against him. Here he planned and executed most of the daring coups that were to win for him international fame. Here also his men were dispersed and reassembled with marvelous facility--one of countless manifestations of his great original genius. "They would scatter for safety, and gather at my call like the Children of the Mist," was what he wrote in after years. Of all his methods this has been the least clearly understood. The explanation that he has offered in his War Reminiscences can be only partially complete; for he could not, with propriety, point to his personal magnetism and daring as the dominant influences, though he must have known that to an extraordinary extent they were responsible for this almost unparalleled devotion. "The true secret," he says, "was that it was a fascinating life, and its attractions far more than counterbalanced its hardships and dangers. They had no camp duty to do, which, however necessary, is disgusting to soldiers of high spirit. To put them to such routine work is pretty much like hitching a race horse to a plow."

Many of his followers were recruited in Loudoun County. A few before the advent of Mosby had pursued peaceable vocations; but the command consisted in the main of men who had seen active service in the cavalry and infantry regiments, but tiring of the routine and discipline of the camp had returned to their homes in Loudoun and adjoining counties. At times he had with him dauntless spirits who had been incapacitated for infantry duty by reason of wounds received in action, some of these carrying crutches along with them tied to their saddle bows. At another time he enrolled several experienced fighters who had been absent from their regiments without leave ever since the first battle of Bull Run--a period of nearly two years.

With this promiscuous following, which at no time exceeded one hundred men, he instituted a long unbroken series of successful strategems, surprises, and night attacks, harassing the communications of the Federal armies, confusing their plans by capturing dispatches, destroying supply trains, subjecting their outposts to the wear and tear of a perpetual skirmish, in short, inflicting all the mischief possible for a small body of cavalry moving rapidly from point to point on the communications of an army.

He believed that by incessant attacks he could compel the enemy either greatly to contract his lines or to reinforce them, both of which would have been of great advantage to the Southern cause. By assuming the aggressive, a rule from which he not once departed, he could force the enemy to guard a hundred points, leaving himself free to select any one of them for attack.

But the theories, purposes, and methods of this peer of partisan leaders is best explained by himself. Simply and unostentatiously, but withal convincingly, expressed, they give to the man and his deeds the unmistakable semblance of fairness and legitimacy. These, together with his masterly defense of partisan warfare, follow in modified and disconnected form:

"The military value of a partisan's work is not measured by the amount of property destroyed, or the number of men killed or captured, but by the number he keeps watching. Every soldier withdrawn from the front to guard the rear of an army is so much taken from its fighting strength.

"I endeavored, as far as I was able, to diminish this aggressive power of the army of the Potomac, by compelling it to keep a large force on the defensive. I assailed its rear, for there was its most vulnerable point. My men had no camps. If they had gone into camp, they would soon have all been captured.... A blow would be struck at a weak or unguarded point, and then a quick retreat. The alarm would spread through the sleeping camp, the long roll would be beaten or the bugles would sound to horse, there would be mounting in hot haste and a rapid pursuit. But the partisans generally got off with their prey. Their pursuers were striking at an invisible foe. I often sent small squads at night to attack and run in the pickets along a line of several miles. Of course, these alarms were very annoying, for no human being knows how sweet sleep is but a soldier. I wanted to use and consume the Northern cavalry in hard work. I have often thought that their fierce hostility to me was more on account of the sleep I made them lose than the number we killed and captured."

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"My purpose was to weaken the armies invading Virginia, by harassing their rear. As a line is only as strong as its weakest point, it was necessary for it to be stronger than I was at every point, in order to resist my attacks.... It is just as legitimate to fight an enemy in the rear as in front. The only difference is in the danger. Now, to prevent all these things from being done, heavy detachments must be made to guard against them."

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"The line that connects an army with its base of supplies is the heel of Achilles--its most vital and vulnerable point. It is a great achievement in war to compel an enemy to make heavy detachments to guard it...."

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"Having no fixed lines to guard or defined territory to hold, it was always my policy to elude the enemy when they came in search of me, and carry the war into their own camps."