Colonel Mosby, the guerrilla chief, has become famous, and his dashing exploits are often recorded to our disadvantage; but even he meets with his match occasionally.
On Friday, March twenty-fifth, 1865,
Captain E. B. Gere, of the Griswold Light Cavalry, was sent out with one hundred and twenty-five men to the neighborhoods of
Berryville and
Winchester on a scout, and encamped at
Millwood, some six or eight miles from the former place.
After the men had got their fires built,
Sergeant Weatherby, of company B,
Corporal Simpson, of company H, and a private, went some two miles from
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camp to get supper at a farm-house, and, waiting for the long delayed tea, were surprised to find several revolvers suddenly advance into the room, behind each pair of which was either C:)lo el
Mosby, a rebel captain or a lieutenant, all rather determined men, with “shoot in their eyes,” who demanded the immediate surrender of the aforesaid
Yankees.
The aim being wicked, the three Twenty-firsters saw they were “under a cloud,” and so quietly gave up the contest.
Colonel Mosby was much elated by his good fortune, and required his prisoners to follow him supperless on his rounds to his headquarters at
Paris; the private, however, while pretending to get his horse, hid himself in the hay and escaped,
Mosby not daring to wait and hunt him up.
On the way to
Paris, the
Colonel amused himself by constantly taunting his prisoners with questions: “Were they with
Major Cole when he thrashed him at
Upperville?”
“Were they with
Major Sullivan, of the First veterans, when his men ran away and left him?”
“How did they fancy his gray nag?--he took that from a Yankee lieutenant.”
“Didn't the Yanks dread him and his men more than they did the regular rebel cavalry?”
“How did they (the prisoners) like his style of fighting?”
and a hundred such remarks, that indicated the man as being more of a braggart than a hero.
He was, in the mean time, engaged in gathering his men with the avowed intention of attacking
Captain Gere's force at daylight, and, if possible, of cutting it to pieces.
His followers live in the farm-houses of
Loudon,
Clarke, and
Jefferson counties, and are either rebel soldiers or Union citizens, as the case may require.
He would ride up to a house, call Joe or Jake, and tell them that he wanted them at such an hour at the usual place; to go and tell Jim or
Mose.
Almost every farm turned out somebody in answer to his call, proving that these men, with the certified oath of. allegiance in their pockets, and with passes allowing them to come in and go out of our lines at will, are not only in sympathy with the enemy, but are themselves perjured rebels.
When they arrived at
Paris,
Colonel Mosby dismounted and stepped Into the house where he had his headquarters, leaving his pistols in the holsters.
The
Lieutenant, with drawn revolver, watched the prisoners while the
Captain endeavored to find an orderly to take the horses.
Corporal Simpson, who had been marking the road for future use, and had been long looking for it, saw his chance and pretended to tie his horse, but really putting his foot into the stirrup of
Mosby's saddle and laying hold of one of the overlooked pistols.
The
Lieutenant detected the move and fired at him, when
Simpson shot him through the heart with the weapon he had secured.
The
Captain turned round and fired, and
Colonel Mosby came to the door to see “what all that----row was about,” just in time to hear a bullet whiz unpleasantly close to his head, that he fired at him “just for luck” as he and his comrade left, yelling back: “
Colonel Mosby, how do you like our style of fighting?
We belong to the Twenty-first New-York.”
And away they went, leaving
Colonel Mosby dismounted, and outwitted of his best horse, saddle, overcoat, pistols, two Yankee prisoners, and at least one vacancy among his commissioned officers.
Corporal Simpson rode twelve miles to the camp, closely followed by the
Sergeant, and gave
Captain Gere such notice of the enemy's intentions that they thought best not to pitch in at the appointed time.
The captured horse is a very fine one, and with the arms, equipments, etc., is still in the possession of simpson.
We believe it. is the intention of the regiment to buy them from the
Government, and to present them to the “Yankee Corporal who beat
Mosby out of his pet nag.”
Captain Gere returned to camp at
Halltown Saturday afternoon, having captured
Lieutenant Wysong, of the Seventh Virginia.
the successor of
Captain Blackford, a noted guerrilla, who was killed by a sergeant of the First New-York.
