Matt Rice
Spain
Toledo
Toledo
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Oh, What Could Have Been…
Spring, 1863
Though the Colonel had been a favourite of Jeb Stuart’s for no little time, his first and only raid across Union Lines was far from what it could have been…
I was one of the twenty he’d recruited the previous winter and was just as rarin’ to get at the those Union boys as any of us, but the luck, and I have to say the Colonel’s decisions, weren’t up to much. Whereas Jeb would have succeeded, Colonel Mosby failed…
We started out from Aldie, leaving the Confederate lines before dawn, headed, we thought, eventually for the supply dump at Rockville, north and some miles behind the Union lines. However, as this was our first raid, the Colonel, thinking perhaps how easy it looked, took us first to the bridge at Farmwell Station which we duly destroyed.
Now, I’m only a lowly lieutenant, but from then on I had to question that decision… Whereas we could have crossed into Union territory as quiet as mice, we’d just gone and woken up the countryside with our daring-do. I didn’t of course openly question the Colonel, but the nagging feeling would not leave me; ‘We could have hit that bridge on the way out. Why the hell go and broadcast our whereabouts like that?’
Luckily, the sizable Union force a few miles East down the track sitting in Herndon Station remained oblivious, and we pushed on North, but this was the beginning of the end of the Colonel's career, there can be no denying it…
We pushed on through Frankville, Woolington and Seneca Ford, not crossing the enemy lines until Seneca. From there it was about 8 miles to the supply dump at Rockville. We inched forward, treading lightly, the enemy in camps all along the way, our probes more or less successful.
It all began to go wrong at Rockville, of course. The scouts we’d put out blundered and the enemy camp was soon up and about, sending troops down the road to Offutt’s Crossroads where we waited. The Colonel, although taking the initiative and easily avoiding the Union troops, pushed on into Rockville in an attempt to blow the stores.
I suspect he was hoping the Union troops that had been sent to find us at Offutt’s would lose our trail or some such fanciful dreaming. They of course didn’t, and simply returned up the road down which they had previously marched, forcing us to either fight or withdraw.
We withdrew, the stores left undamaged, and there then followed a number of excruciating hours of stumbling our way back South through increasingly alert Union forces. I think it was the Colonel’s pride that brought an end to this behaviour, however. Upon encountering a small force of perhaps 40 enemy just outside Dawsonville, the Colonel turned to us and said; “Well, boys. It’s do or die. They outnumber us, but just think what this small victory might mean to the folks back home.”
We all nodded, some with more enthusiasm than others, I might add, but we checked our loads, primed our revolvers and attacked… It was manageable, well within our abilities, but we threw it away.
Perhaps it was the light drizzle or the general feelings of fatigue and defeat that had hounded us for the past few miles since the failure of the Rockville raid, but that little skirmish broke us. We scattered, melting into the grey dreary morning and headed for home.
Not long after, the Colonel, far from famous, was advised by Jeb Stuart to return to his previous standing as scout for Stuart’s own forces and the rest, as they say, is history….
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