Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1901 — Col. Mosby Reappears. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Col. Mosby Reappears.

The recent appointment, to please President McKinley, of Col. John S. Mosby as special agent of the General Land Office,-with headquarters in the west, has brought into prominence one of the picturesque figures of the civil war—a man admired by the south for his dash and brilliancy and reviled by northern soldiers because his warfare was of the guerilla type. A Virginian by birth, he is now approaching his 69th birthday. While in the University of Virginia he shot and seriously wounded a fellow student who had assaulted him and, during his confinement for this offense, he studied law so thoroughly that soon after his release he was admitted to the bar. At the beginning of the war he fought with Joseph E. Johnston and later with Stuart, but after two years he organized, in northern Virginia, a force of Irregular cavalry and during the remainder of the war he harassed the Federal troops by cutting o- communications between the armies and destroying supply trains. His partisan rangers, when not on a raid, scattered for safety and remained in concealment, with orders to assemble again at a given time and place. Various expeditions were sent out against him,, but friendly neighbors always kept him Informed of the enemy’s approach. Mosby held rank in the Confederate army and reported to Gen. Stuart and, after his death, to Gen. Lee. His partisans received the same pay from the

Confederate government as the regular cavalrymen. At the close of Abe war he resumed the practice of law, supported Grant and Hayes and was for six years consul to Hong Kong.

COL. JOHN S. MOSBY.