Like most who were actively engaged in the liberties pursuits that was the Civil War, Colonel John Singleton Mosby found purpose and advent in his own measure and activity during the war. Despite his irreverence, Mosby would come to be known as the commander of Mosby's Raiders or Mosby's Confederacy and he himself known to be the Gray Ghost in his efforts towards the Union Army in the Battle of Bull Run & the Peninsular campaigns. It is derived from these activities as a Confederate Cavalry commander and then ultimately organizing his partisan unit; Company A, 43rd Virginia Cavalry Battalion that awarded him this status. This paper will discuss his contributions to the Virginia battles that occurred during the Civil War as well as his first hand experiences.
Interestingly enough, Mosby references in his memoirs his undoubtable lack of interest in being a military man. Having gone to Bristol, Virginia in October 1855 to become one of the first lawyers in that region, it seemed farfetched that he would become an integral part of the Virginia battles. From his own accounts, in the summer of 1860 he was quickly recruited by William Blackford, at the time a Colonel of engineers for J.E.B. Stuart's staff, for the purposes of joining a cavalry company. Although Mosby in his own convictions had opposed Virginia's secession and often times sided with the Union views, he obliged Blackford and allowed his name to be added to the muster roll; however, Mosby account his indifference to the cavalry to the degree that he was a "no-show" on the very day the cavalry was being organized. .
While I haven't concluded to this point Mosby's stance in the battles of Virginia, I do find it surprising that a man with such little beginning military interest came to be a colonel! Personally, I find his behavior odd. This is a man who seemingly by his own accounts agrees to join the cavalry but doesn't care to show for its organization and purpose.
