That same fall another instance occurred, in which Moseby's guerillas were certainly the actors, and which was of a much more warlike character.
To cut off, gobble up, capture, or destroy paymasters and their escorts, quartermaster trains; and commissary trains, Colonel Moseby regarded as his special and particular province, and every one of his men was on the special look-out for chances of this kind. On the occasion now under consideration, Brevet Major Paymaster Tilletson was on his way from Williamsport to Shepherdstown, Md., accompanied by a captain, three lieutenants, and six privates—the latter and one lieutenant as an escort, the other officers returning to their respective commands from sick-leaves. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, Moseby, with a number of his gang, sprang out upon them, and, holding a cocked pistol at the head of each, demanded their surrender. Of course, they could do nothing but submit. Each officer was securely bound, while the privates were either killed or made their escape. In due time the whole party arrived within the Confederate lines, when the Union officers would probably have been made to illustrate Moseby's maxim, that "dead men tell no tales," had not an officer who had his authority direct from the War Department met him and ordered him to send the prisoners to Richmond. Moseby and his men helped themselves to so much of the greenbacks as they could conveniently carry, while tens of thousands of dollars were found next day scattered along the road between Williamsport and Shepherdstown.
Not long after the capture just related, Moseby and his men gobbled up another squad of officers, consisting of one major, two captains, and three lieutenants, who had been absent on sick-leaves and were then returning to their respective commands. After they had surrendered as prisoners of war, their money, watches, and everything they had of any value was taken from them. When fairly within the Confederate lines they were taken into a dense pine-grove, some distance off the road, and then told they were all to be hung so soon as the needed preparations could be made. Had a thunderbolt fallen at their feet from a clear sky, these six Union officers could not have been more surprised. All protested against such unmilitary, unusual, inhuman treatment—some begged for life, some wept; but the only reply they could get from Moseby was, "Prepare for death!" Providentially, as it would seem, one young man of Moseby's band had a "heart of flesh," and determined, if possible, to save the lives of these officers. He knew that an officer who had the authority to command Moseby (the same referred to in the preceding incident) was at a farm-house only a few miles from the pine-grove in which they had stopped for temporary encampment, and where these Union officers were to be executed. Slipping away from his comrades, he hastened to the farm-house to tell this officer of what Moseby proposed to do. So soon as the officer was told, he determined to stop it, if they could only reach there before the men were executed. The officer and private mounted fresh horses, borrowed from the farmer, and rode with breakneck speed until they reached the grove. It was quite dark, but the camp-fires of Moseby and his men lighted them to the spot. Springing from his horse at the edge of the grove, the officer left the two horses in care of the young man and hastened to where he saw the camp-fire burning. Stopping for a moment to survey the scene before making his presence known, he observed the six Union officers seated on a log on the opposite side of the fire from where he stood, each with head dropped upon his breast, each with eyes glaring wildly into vacancy or suffused with tears, each with lips pale with fear or moving in silent prayer, and each the very picture of despair in feature and attitude. Moseby was walking to and fro in front of them, uttering oaths and imprecations against them; guards stood about them or walked their rounds silently; while only a little way off, in plain sight, others were busy throwing over or affixing ropes to limbs preparatory for execution. It was a scene which only the pencil of a Raphael might have sketched or a Gorreggio have painted.
The officer, having fully surveyed and comprehended the whole scene, suddenly sprang from the darkness into the light of the camp-fire, and in a sharp tone demanded of Colonel Moseby what all this meant.
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"You see what it means," Moseby replied, pointing to the men who were affixing the ropes to the trees.
"Who are these prisoners, and what have they done that you propose to hang them?" asked the officer.
"They are d—d Yankee officers whom I captured this afternoon, and purpose to hang them to-night. Dead men never bite," answered Moseby.