Special operations and irregular warfare are shaping the world’s future. Irregular forces sparked a regional war and are shutting down crucial shipping lanes as covert operations are attempting to influence elections. What is old is new: the inspiration for modern American special and covert operations originates in a previously untold Civil War story. John Singleton Mosby, one of the main characters of this story, 161 years ago this week conducted what is considered the perfect special operation.
Through the drizzling rain and melting snow on the night of March 9, 1863, Mosby, the guerrilla leader who had most confounded the Union Army with his incessant raids on enemy pickets, rail lines, and other strategic targets and then faded back into the Virginia countryside defying all attempts to capture him, led his men on yet another midnight special operation. Shrouded in darkness and black rain ponchos that hid their Confederate gray uniforms, the 30 men rode toward an unknown destination, which Mosby had revealed only to the man he was trusting to get them through enemy checkpoints—Sergeant James F. “Big Yankee” Ames, who had deserted from the Union Army only weeks earlier.
Colonel John Singleton Mosby’s men meeting at the Blue Ridge Pass, Shenandoah river valley, United States of America, American Civil War, illustration from the magazine The Illustrated London News, volume XLVI, January 21, 1865.
The objective of their mission, the kidnapping of Union Colonel Percy Wyndham was so daring and their destination of Fairfax, Virginia so guarded that “no one dreamed of the possibility of an enemy approaching them.” But The Grey Ghost, as the troublesome partisan leader would become known after the success of this mission, routinely aspired to what no one else dreamed possible. Wyndham, a flamboyant English soldier of fortune who sported an astonishing ten-inch moustache and pointed beard, had called Mosby a horse thief and violated the code of war by threatening to torch the entire town of Middleburg, Virginia, if Mosby’s raids did not stop. Mosby wrote an elegant retort refusing to comply with the Union commander’s demands maintaining that “no such clamor shall deter me from employing whatever legitimate weapons I can most efficiently use for their annoyance,” but the guerrilla leader also “thought I would put a stop to his talk by gobbling him up in bed and sending him off to Richmond.”
Mosby assured his men, “Our safety was in the audacity of the enterprise.” He later wrote, “I had only twenty-nine men—we were surrounded by hostile thousands….Nothing of the kind had ever been attempted before the war, and no preparations had been made to guard against it. It is only practicable to guard against what is probable, and in war, as everything else, a great deal must be left to chance.”
They rode on Chain Bridge Road, past thousands of sleeping Federal calvary and infantry encamped in Germantown and Centerville, from the south directly through Union-friendly territory, as if they were a returning Federal unit. They reached Fairfax Court House around 2 a.m., two hours later than planned. Along the way, a single sentinel halted them and asked for identification, to which Ames, dressed in Union blue leading the column of black poncho-clad Confederate Rangers, boldly responded, “5th New York Cavalry” then proceeded to capture the poor soldier and take him along.
Once in the town, the Rangers were disappointed to find the insulting Wyndham had already departed for Washington but learned the foppish 25-year-old General Edwin H. Stoughton, one of the youngest brigadier generals appointed by Lincoln, was staying in a nearby home. The Confederate guerrilla leader personally strode up to the white-columned porch of the colonial red-brick house, grabbed the sleepy night-shirt-clad lieutenant who answered his knock by the collar, whispered who he was, and demanded to be taken to the general’s room. He found the general in bed asleep, surrounded by uncorked champagne bottles and other signs of revelry. After several unsuccessful attempts to wake him, the audacious Confederate raised the Union officer’s nightshirt and spanked him. In response to his outcry, Mosby asked, “General, did you ever hear of Mosby?”
“Yes. Have you caught him?” was the eager reply.
“No. I am Mosby—he has caught you.”
John Singleton Mosby stands in military uniform against a painted landscape. Mosby (1833-1916), an American colonel of the Civil War, was also an attorney and the United States consul to Hong Kong in 1878. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
As the general dressed, in a bit of psychological warfare, the Confederate scrawled on the wall with a piece of coal plucked from the fireplace the five letters which he had cultivated to strike fear in the heart of every Union soldier in Northern Virginia: M-O-S-B-Y.
Mosby and his Rangers then faced the incredibly difficult task of retreating through enemy territory with Stoughton and scores of men and horses in tow without being apprehended and before daylight revealed their small number to their captured prisoners. In fact, after the raid, Lincoln allegedly was more concerned about the number of horses Mosby and his Rangers managed to steal than the kidnapping of Stoughton, quipping that he “did not much mind the loss of a brigadier general, he could make another in five minutes. But those horses cost $125 apiece!”
This photo provided by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum shows an ambrotype image of President Abraham Lincoln circa 1858. During his U.S. Senate campaign against Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln sat for a photograph after politicking in western Illinois and presented one of the copies to a man severely injured while testing a campaign-rally cannon whose life was spared by flesh-eating maggots. That is the unlikely, ghastly background of this original 1858 ambrotype of the future nation-saving Civil War president which the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has added to its collection, officials said Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum via AP)
The full details of this remarkable near-perfect special operation are told in my upcoming book, The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations. The book reveals the drama of the irregular guerrilla warfare that altered the course of the Civil War, including the story of Lincoln’s special forces who donned Confederate gray to hunt Mosby and his Confederate Rangers from 1863 to the war’s end at Appomattox—a previously untold story that inspired the creation of U.S. modern special operations in World War II. The book also captures the story of the Confederate Secret Service.
Mosby, the thoughtful, bookish, 5’7”, 128-pound, clean-shaved, sandy-haired Virginian who had studied Latin and Greek at university before joining the Confederate army, was the last person one would think whose mere name would eventually evoke terror in battle-hardened warriors. But enigmatic to the end, the Confederate guerilla leader who pioneered a new form of warfare was also the last person one would think would denounce the Lost Cause myth when the war was over.
After the war, Mosby was unapologetic about his military actions, “A soldier fights for his country—right or wrong—he is not responsible for the political merits of the course he fights in…The South was my country,” but he switched political parties. He became not only a Republican, but Ulysses S. Grant’s personal friend and campaign manager in the 1868 presidential election, earning the hatred of many, death threats, and even an assassination attempt. The former partisan leader once quipped to a friend, “Hell is being a Republican in Virginia.”
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant poses in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 1864. Grant led the Union Army to victory during the American Civil War, and accepted the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865. He was made full general in 1866, and served two terms as U.S. President from 1868 to 1877. (AP Photo/Mathew Brady)
He returned to practicing law, was appointed consul of Hong Kong, and worked as a U.S. attorney for the Department of Justice. He used his positions to root out corruption, save the lives of trafficked women, and protect them as they immigrated to the United States. His influence extended even further to his time in San Gabriel, California, with a young George Patton, Jr on their family ranch. Undoubtedly, America’s greatest guerrilla warfare practitioner’s lightning attacks and cavalry tactics impacted the young man’s tank and maneuver warfare tenets that he later developed and utilized in World War II. Despite his remarkable life and the depth of his influence, the brilliant, charismatic former Confederate remains enigmatic—defying conventions, expectations, and, in some cases, even explanation. His memory and that of the Union Scouts who pursued him retain a mystic gravitas. Together, they profoundly influenced American special operations—forever the Gray Ghost.
Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling, critically-acclaimed military historian and an expert on elite units. He is the author of thirteen books, including his forthcoming book on the Civil War The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations, publishing May 7, The Indispensables, Beyond Valor, First SEALs, and The Unknowns. O’Donnell served as a combat historian in a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah and often speaks on espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks’ award-winning miniseries Band of Brothers and documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, and Discovery. PatrickKODonnell.com @combathistorian