"From Mosby's Command": Newspaper Letters & Articles by and about John S. Mosby and his rangers edited by Horace Mewborn. 268 pp., hc, dj, illus., maps, index.

From Mosby's Command

compiled and edited by Horace Mewborn

One of the last frontiers for research on the war that raged across the American landscape from 1861 to 1865 is newspapers, both war-date and postwar. During the war soldiers and civilians wrote countless letters that were published innumerable articles from veterans recording their experiences, as well as their thoughts on how the war was fought or how it should have been fought. This book is composed of select letters that were published both during and after the war about John Mosby and his Rangers.

Among the war-date items is a letter written by Mosby a few dats after the capture of General Edwin Stoughton that provides some details of the raid. Interestingly, several letters by an unidentified author or authors from the Upperville area were published in the Richmond Daily Enquirer during the war. These letters provide information and insight about life in Mosby's Confederacy, as well as some actions of the Rangers. Among the postwar items are a set of articles in which Sam Chapman described his activities with the 43rd Battalion. Other articles discuss the Berryville wagon train raid, the executions at Front Royal, and Wat Bowie's controversial raid into Maryland in October 1864.

In the late 19th Century, John Mosby authored two books and numerous newspaper and magazine articles about the war. While many of his articles defended Jeb Stuart's actions in the Gettysburg campaign, several dealt with the Rangers. The last three items in this book, prepared by Mosby in 1894, detail his conflict with Philip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864.