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posted 1 day ago by Heliocentric on scored.co (+0 / -0 / +20Score on mirror )
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Heliocentric on scored.co
1 day ago 9 points (+0 / -0 / +9Score on mirror ) 1 child
Colonel John Singleton Mosby and a small band of his Partisan Rangers captured Union General Edwin H. Stoughton in his bed in Fairfax, Virginia on March 8,1863. from Jeff Crone:

Operating behind enemy lines constantly harassing Federal troops in northern Virginia, Mosby’s men would appear suddenly as if out of nowhere, strike a Federal outpost, railroad or supply base, then disburse and seemingly vanish. Mosby’s tactics earned him the nickname “the Gray Ghost” and the area of northern Virginia where he operated came to be called “Mosby’s Confederacy.”
   The Federals were of course, determined to put an end to Mosby and his hit and run attacks. In early 1863 the man charged with the responsibility of nabbing Mosby was Colonel Percy Wyndham, a colorful English adventurer in command of a Brigade of Federal Cavalry.
   In February 1863 a deserter from a New York cavalry Regiment in Wyndham’s Brigade told Mosby that there was an unguarded spot along the Federal picket line and also told him the location of the headquarters of Colonel Wyndham, and the commanding General Edwin Stoughton. Armed with this information, Mosby devised a bold and audacious plan. With a small force of Rangers he would sneak through the Federal lines into the town of Fairfax, capture Wyndham and Stoughton and carry them to Richmond.
   On a rainy night in early March, Mosby and 29 of his men with the Yankee deserter as their guide slipped through the crack in the Federal picket line between Centerville and Chantilly. A little before midnight they then rode calmly into Fairfax, taking the guards by surprise, capturing them and cutting the telegraph lines. One squad of Rangers went to Colonel Wyndham’s quarters, and another went to the stables to seize horses, while Mosby and five or six of his men went to the house where General Stoughton was quartered. Mosby knocked on the door, and when a staff officer asked who’s there, Mosby replied “5th New York Cavalry with a dispatch for General Stoughton.” When the officer opened the door, Mosby stepped in, put a pistol to the officer and told him to take them to Stoughton’s room.
   The General was fast asleep when Mosby entered his room. Mosby pulled off the covers and slapped Stoughton on the butt. “Who are you?” Stoughton asked, half awake. “Have you heard of Mosby?” Mosby answered. “Mosby?” Stoughton said. “Have you caught the rascal?” “I AM Mosby,” Mosby answered with a laugh.
   With General Stoughton, 32 prisoners, and 58 captured horses, (Wyndham was away from camp that night and avoided capture), Mosby and his 29 rangers made their way carefully back through the Federal lines without being detected and without suffering a single casualty. Mosby’s feat added to his already legendary reputation in the South.
Stoughton was included in a prisoner exchange a few months later, but the humiliating circumstances of his capture had exposed him to so much ridicule, that he was not reappointed General, leading him to resign from the Army. He died of tuberculosis in 1868 at age 30.
   Wyndham left the Army after a fellow officer accused him of considering switching sides. He moved to India and ended up making a living giving hot air balloon demonstrations before being killed in 1879 at age 45 when his balloon crashed in Burma.
   
derjudenjager on scored.co
1 day ago 3 points (+0 / -0 / +3Score on mirror )
I love this guy.
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