Category Archives: Mosby’s Partisan Rangers

36th Pennsylvania Infantry, 7th Pennsylvania Reserves, Battle of Ball's Bluff, Mosby's Partisan Rangers

1862-64: Robert B. Terry to his Family

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The following letter was written by Robert Brooks Terry (1842-1901), the son of William Terry (1814-1863) and Grizzella Brady (1812-1905) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Robert was married to Ida Jane Piersol, 20 years his junior in 1889.

I could not find an image of Robert but here is one of Daniel Goodman of Co. K, 36th Pennsylvania Infantry who also was taken prisoner on 5 May 1864 and survived imprisonment at Andersonville. (LOC)

Robert was only 18 years old when he enlisted in June 1861 to serve in Co. K, 36th Pennsylvania Infantry (7th Pennsylvania Reserves). In his letter of April 21, 1864, datelined from a camp near Bristoe Station, Virginia, just two weeks prior to the launch of Grant’s Overland Campaign, Robert conjectured that his regiment wouldn’t see much action. “I judge we will be kept in the rear,” he reassured his sister. He could not have been more wrong. His regiment was in the front lines and heavily engaged in the first day’s action in the Wilderness where they suffered heavy casualties—over 300 killed, wounded or missing. Surrounded and forced to surrender, 272 officers and men in the regiment were taken prisoner and marched to Orange Court House, then to Lynchburg, Virginia. The enlisted men were sent to Andersonville, Georgia, a notorious prison camp, while the officers were sent to Camp Oglethorpe in Macon, Georgia. Robert was one of the “lucky” one to survive the ordeal. He was released on 1 March 1865 and mustered out on 27 April 1865.

Letter 1

Much of the following letter refers to the Battle of Ball’s Bluff which ended badly for the Union army due to poor communication by George McClellan. Readers are referred to the Army Historical Foundation’s article entitled, “Disaster at Ball’s Bluff, 21 October 1861” for a more complete understanding of events.

Camp Pierpont
Fairfax county, Virginia
February 26, 1862

Dear Father,

I received your most welcome letter on the 26th inst. and I was very glad to hear from you. The weather out here now is very good. We had a regular hurricane out here on last Monday but did not damage to anything in this regiment but the tents and it took the majority of them with it. But our tent stood the storm like a rock. It also done a good bit of damage in Washington. Over in the 3rd Regiment, it blowed a tree on a couple of fellows, killing one instantly and breaking both of the legs of the other. I reckon we will be on the move now shortly, maybe inside of the next 2 weeks but I cannot tell exactly.

The Captains gave us new cartridges, 40 rounds to each man, and the orders were to put them in our cartridge box so as to get them out on a double quick. I judge by that that there is a going to be some running besides fighting.

The War Department has sent over about 400 wagons for the use of the division. And that looks like moving. I don’t hardly think we will go beyond Leesburg. We will have the advance till we get to Leesburg. And if we go on to Manassas, Banks will cross at Edward’s Ferry opposite Leesburg and lead on to Manassas. Banks won’t cross till we get on the move and get to Leesburg for they tried it once before and we were ordered there but only got as far as Difficult Creek and was ordered back to camp. And the consequence was that “Stone” sent over Baker’s Brigade which was cut to pieces and Baker himself killed. And what wasn’t killed was taken prisoners. But if we had to kept on, that Balls Bluff affair would never happened. As McCall had his whole division on the move amounting to 15,000 men but was ordered back before he got half way to Leesburg and that both the whole thing.

I heard the news boys a hollering through the camp this morning that Nashville had surrendered. I received a letter from Isiah Bready on last Saturday. He got his situation in the Post Office at Alexander. I expect him up to see me every day as he told me in the letter that he would come up when he gets time. The doctor vaccinated all of us one day last week. He wanted something to do I think. It was to keep us from getting the small pox. I guess I will stop now as I want to say a few words to Lou. Give my best respects to all my friends, &c. From your affectionate son, — Robert B. Terry

Dear Sister [Louisa],

I received your letter on the 24th inst. and was very glad to hear from you. they ought to send the home guards down in this neighborhood for about 3 months. I think it would do the country more good than parading around the streets of Philadelphia. The Rebels at Manassas are 30,000 strong and they are all to die before the place is taken. The other 30,000 they have called away from there & Centerville. If we have the right kind of artillery, it will not take long to take that or Richmond.

I wrote a letter down to Mr. Willcox on Monday which a messmate of mine, Samuel T. Wilson, and I made up and of which I shall give you an extract of. It is as follows: “To the family of our departed friend and fellow soldier in arms, John H. Willcox [Wilcox]. Whereby it has pleased the Almighty God to remove from our midst our friend and fellow soldier John H. Willcox, we do solemnly mourn his loss. What is our loss is his eternal gain in happiness. He came forth nobly at the call of his country in the vigor of manhood to battle against its enemies, little thinking then that before htis great Rebellion would be over, that he would be called to his final resting place. No more will he meet in our midst as we gather around our camp fire or hear his cheerful voice as that tongue is silent. But weep not for him friends as he is at rest. Though no mother or father was near to soothe his brow or no sister to support his dying head, but friends were there who loved him dearly. His amiable disposition and character gained him many friends, None knew him but loved him. Missed he will be in the family circle. But we will miss him more while engaged in the great struggle. When peace smiles once more on our country and we receive the order to return to our beloved homes, then we shall miss him for he will not be with us to share our happiness. But when you. think of him, think then he offered his life upon his country’s alter, sacrificed all to endure the horrors of a battlefield, fatiguing marches, and the misery of a camp life. He has paid the last debt of nature and he now rests till the trumpet of the archangel shall call him forth to meet his God. There let us all endeavor to meet and be happy. — Robt. B. Terry

P. S. Direct in care of Captain [James M.] Rice as the boys elected him Captain. [Casper] Martin has resigned and went home. We have not got marching orders. Three. days rations in our haversacks and ready to march at a minute’s notice. I expect we will go tonight or early in the morning and the order is that when once on the road again, we won’t come back till driven back by an overwhelming force. — R. B. Terry

Letter 2

Robert wrote the letter to his younger sister, Louisa B. Terry (1844-1865) who was employed as a 21 year-old school teacher in Philadelphia at the time of her death on 5 December 1865.

Addressed to Miss Louisa B. Terry, 1429 Apple Street, 17th Ward, Philadelphia, Pa.

Camp of the 7th Regt. P. R. V. Infantry
Near Bristoe Station, Va.
April 21st 1864

Dear Lou,

I received your most welcome letter at the usual time and was very glad to hear from home. You see by the heading of this letter that we are again on the move. We left Alexandria on the 19th inst. for Manassas Junction. We have joined the Division and are encamp[ed] about one mile below Bristoe Station. But we do not expect to stay here long. But how soon we will be on the move, I cannot say. I think we will take part in the next grand move which I suppose will take place next month. But I don’t suppose we will have a great deal of fighting to do unless they run us directly front.

The Division commander has received his map of the country in which he is to operate with his Division and that extends to the Rapidan. And from that, I judge we will be kept in the rear. And if that is the case, we will have plenty to do as the country around here abounds with guerrillas under the celebrated Mosby that you have heard so much talk. In fact, they [are] a very daring set of brutes (for you cannot call them men) who pop on you every now and then and sends somebody to his last account. We have to be very careful out here—cannot go outside of our guards for if we do, we will be lucky if we come back without bearing some mark from the guerrillas.

As far as we can learn, the largest portion of the Army will move by the way of Fredericksburg, and then I suppose the line of communications will be broken up and the road to Aquia Creek be again open.

There is great talk now about us being discharged from our first enlistment but I can give you more about that in my next for by that time we all will be satisfied as to the time we will be discharged. For some of the men’s time is out in the Division and they has turned in their arms. But whether they are a going to discharge them now or not, I cannot say. But every day now is bringing some of the men’s time out and as far as the men are concerned, they are taken action on it immediately and the sensible officers are upholding them.

I delivered your message to Jack and he wants to know the lady that complimented him and says she is the only one that has done it for some time. I have been expecting a letter from Charley Leister ever since I came out as he told me he would write to me in the middle of November last and the letter has not arrived yet. And another thing, he has the advantage of me for he knows my address and I do not know his as he has moved and it is for him to notify me.

Ben will make out first rate in Alexandria if he goes there but won’t like the city. I received the N. Y. T. [New York Tribune]. M. K. is well or was some two weeks ago and will deliver your message when I write to the person which I suppose will be between this and Sunday. I will now close. Direct as before. Give my love to all & hoping to hear from you soon, I remain your brother, — R. B. Terry

Mosby's Partisan Rangers

Youthful Daredevils

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The sixth-place ambrotype (reversed) of John Henry Thomas taken in 1862 while serving as 2nd Lieutenant in Co. C of the “Irish Battalion,” or the 1st Battalion Virginia Infantry (Regulars). Lt. Thomas wears his double breasted officer’s frock coat with gilded buttons and he holds his slouch hat adorned with an acorn braid hat cord on his lap. The tip of his leather revolver holster can be seen peeking out from underneath.
(W. Griffing Collection)

“Youthful daredevils who rode side-by-side,” is how noted author Jeffry Wirt referred to the young men who joined John S. Mosby’s partisan rangers from Fairfax, Fauquier, and Louden counties in Virginia. Nicknamed the “Gray Ghost” for his lightning quick raids and his ability to elude Union pursuit, Mosby came to operate with impunity in the aforementioned counties, harassing the rear of the Federal army in an area that came to be called “Mosby’s Confederacy.” His command—the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry—was not officially organized until the spring of 1863, but recruiting was never a problem. Young men from the counties whose family farms were being destroyed and ravished by Union forces, their homes occupied by Union officers, or their family members abused or disrespected were more than anxious to “join up” with Mosby who reported to no one but J. E. B. Stuart.

John’s father, Hon. Henry W. Thomas of Fairfax Court House, Va. (Library of Virginia)

One such volunteer was John Henry Thomas (1843-1888)—the son of Judge Henry Wirtz Thomas who represented Fairfax county in the State Legislature before the war and served the Confederacy as the Auditor of the State. His mother was Julia M. Jackson, the older sister of James William Jackson, the proprietor of the Marshall House in nearby Alexandria, who became instantly famous for killing Col. Elmer Ellsworth when the colonel removed the Confederate flag from the hotel’s rooftop flagpole in May 1861. Jackson was in turn immediately gunned down by Ellsworth’s men, his body bayonetted and trampled—the “first martyr to the cause of Southern Independence.”

A handsome young man standing 6 foot tall, with blue eyes and dark hair, John Henry was working as a clerk when the war began and did not initially enlist until 18 April 1862 as a private in Co. G (the “Hanover Light Dragoons”) of the famous “Black Horse” 4th Virginia Cavalry. Like most other young men with connections, however, he used his father’s influence to obtain a commission from the Governor as a 2nd Lt. in Co. C of the “Irish Battalion,” or the 1st Battalion Virginia Infantry (Regulars), and so he was not long in transferring into the infantry, his commission arriving in May 1862 while he was hospitalized at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond suffering from diarrhea.

By the fall of 1862, with the Union’s demoralizing loss at the Battle of Second Bull Run and Chantilly, the Army of the Potomac took up permanent quarters around Fairfax Court House, making it the headquarters of Maj. General Franz Sigel’s XII Corps, and even establishing a military hospital in the Seminary. The occupation of his home town and the “house guests” in blue who frequented his father’s home looking for room and board no doubt wore on John like an itchy wool sweater. 

Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth’s frock coat showing the hole that John’s uncle—James Wm. Jackson—put in it at close range with his 12 Gauge double barrel shotgun on 24 May 1861. The New York State Military Museum.

Early in 1863, when Mosby began operating with squads of limited numbers, John’s muster records indicate that he was with his regiment still hunkered down south of the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg. In March and April, however, records shows him on detached service as the Provost Marshall at Beaver Dam, Virginia—his daytime job. At night, he began to hook up with Mosby’s rangers on raids behind enemy lines. Though Mosby had as many as 800 men who rode with him by the end of April, most of the time they operated only in small squads to escape detection. One such midnight raid in which John was known to have participated was the “Fairfax Court House Raid of March 9, 1863” resulting in the capture of Gen. Edwin H. Stoughton who was quartered in the Dr. William P. Gunnell House and other officers quartered in the residence of John’s father. The raid was summed up by William Alexander McCoy of Co. B, 1st West Virginia Cavalry in a letter dated on 13 March 1863 (published on Spared & Shared 22) which read:

“The rebels made quite a daring raid on Fairfax Court House a few nights ago. They took General Stoughton and a few other officers and 40 or 50 condemned horses. I suppose they thought that they were getting a fine lot of horses but I guess that they found out their mistake as soon it became daylight for they turned several of them loose and they came back. The horses on an average were worth about $2½ a piece. There was about 40 of the rebels. All of them had our uniforms on and by some way mysterious obtained the countersign and came almost through our camp, went to Fairfax, done all they wanted to, and then returned unmolested…They are called “Partisan Rangers.” They don’t receive any pay from the Confederacy. All the horses that they capture they sell at Richmond and this is the way that they get their pay. They will not fight anything like their own number. All they want to do is to capture horses and other articles from us that they can sell.”

From April 30 to August 31, 1863, whether John was present with his regiment was “not stated” in the muster rolls. It seems evident that he was not and on 5 October 1863, he “resigned his commission and joined Mosby’s command.” A letter addressed to Secretary of War James Sedden dated 28 August 1863 may be found in his military file requesting authority to raise a company of cavalry “to act within the lines of the enemy in conjunction with Major Mosby & under his command.” He went on to add that he was “well acquainted with the region of country in which he is acting & am confident that, with authority from you, I can raise a Company in a short time, having had assurances given me to that effect.” Such authority may have been necessary for Mosby to accept John officially into the Rangers as he was known to insist upon no deserters joining his outfit.

As a member of Mosby’s Partison Rangers, it understandably proves more difficult to track John’s movements and activities going forward but a book by Keen & Mewborn published in 1993 entitled “43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry” informs us that John was a 4th Sergeant in Co. A and that he officially joined the Rangers in the fall of 1863. He was known to be on the 14 November 1863 raid on a sutler’s wagon near Fairfax Court House and he was taken prisoner two days later and charged with plundering. The date of his exchange isn’t known. In July 1864 he participated in a raid on Point of Rocks, Maryland (see “Great Calico Raid”), and two days later at Mt. Zion Church. On October 9, 1864, he led a skirmish and captured dispatches at Ashby’s Gap. He officially surrendered on 9 May 1865 and “swallowed the yellow dog” (took oath) at Alexandria.

A letter embossed with the State of Virginia seal addressed to John H. Thomas, Mosby’s Command, Louden county, Va. hand carried during the war. [William J. Stier Collection]

John’s post-war activities are sketchy. He married Fannie Gwynn (1847-1907) and settled down in Fairfax county where he attempted to rebuild his life. The 1870 US Census identifies him as a farmer but what was left of the family farm is uncertain as a Freedman’s village and school was reportedly built on a portion of his father’s lands. By 1880 he had taken a job as a “mail agent on the Manassas branch of the Virginia Maryland railroad,” and had fathered three children—Alma M. Thomas, age 7, and twin girls Ruth and Ruby, age 3. He died eight years later in 1888 at the age of 45, his cause of death described curiously “as an illness of but three days” while visiting at his father’s home in Fairfax Court House. The one and only obituary notice I could find for him summed up his life with the phrase, “during the war he was a member of Mosby’s battalion.”

The back of the cased image with Alma’s note identifying the image as that of her father, John H. Thomas. The note is attached with brittle and yellowed tape.

The 6th-plate ambrotype image of John Henry Thomas is identified by a piece of paper taped to the outside of the case which reads, “John H. Thomas, son of Judge H. Thomas, Confederate 1st Lieut. under Stone Wall Jackson by his daughter Alma, Fairfax, Va.” The image was sold at auction in 1997 and has been in the personal collection of my friend Jean MacCallum until recently when she sold it to me. Jean gathered most of the background material on the Thomas family and together we confirmed that Alma was actually John’s daughter, had married Henry Cox Saffell in 1896, and that she lived in the District of Columbia until her death in 1966 at the age of 93. Her advanced age when she labeled this image may account for her confusion of Jeb Stuart with Stonewall Jackson but the other identifiers are unmistakable.