A History of the Town of Fairfax

by Jeanne Johnson Rust

Mosby was disappointed in what happened—"Lee came out of his tent and welcomed General Stoughton ... as a long lost brother. He took him into the tent to give him a drink and left me out in the rain!"

Lincoln was so outraged with Stoughton that he dismissed him from the Army.

It is no wonder that Episcopal ministers who have inhabited the Gunnell home in the past have complained of the lights flashing on during the wee small hours of the night and of the stairs creaking. It is hard to tell whether Mosby's ghost is coming again for Stoughton or whether Stoughton's ghost is wandering through the house, wary of a second attempt to surprise him at night.

Mosby writes further about his raid: "Just as we were moving out of the town a ludicrous incident occurred. As we passed by a house an upper window was lifted and a voice called out in a preemptory tone and asked what cavalry that was. It sounded so funny that the men broke out in a loud laugh. I knew that it must be an officer of rank; so the column was halted and Joe Nelson and Welt Hatcher were ordered to search the house. Lt. Col. Johnstone of the Fifth New York Cavalry, was spending the night there with his wife. For some reason he suspected something wrong when he heard my men laugh and immediately took flight in his shirt tail out the back door. Nelson and Hatcher broke through the front door, but his wife met them like a lioness in the hall and obstructed them all she could in order to give time for her husband to make his escape. The officer could not be found, but my men took some consolation for the loss by bringing his clothes away with them. He had run out through the back yard into the garden and crawled for shelter in a place it is not necessary to describe. He lay there concealed and shivering with cold and fear until after daylight. He did not know for some time that we had gone, and he was afraid to come out of his hole to find out. His wife didn't know where he was. In squeezing himself under the shelter, he had torn off his shirt and when he appeared before his wife next morning, as naked as when he was born and smelling a great deal worse it is reported she refused to embrace him before he had taken a bath. After he had been scrubbed down with a horse brush he started in pursuit of us but went in the opposite direction from which we had gone."

Mosby's Rangers at this time were composed chiefly of young men from Fairfax and the adjoining counties, with some Marylanders. Among the men from Fairfax County were Franklin Williams, Richard Ratcliffe Farr, Capt. V. Beattie. The men had to arm, equip and supply themselves, so although they turned captured cattle and mules over to the Confederacy, they kept any horses they were able to find. They wore Confederate uniforms and through necessity on occasion captured overcoats. The "Jessie Scouts" of the Federal Army also wore the grey uniform in order to deceive the people and gain information.

An amusing illustration of the confusion and deception created by this occurred near Fairfax.

"A party of Federal soldiers dressed in grey, rode up to a worthy old farmer and after a short conversation asked him whether he was a 'Unionist' or a 'Secessionist'. The unsuspecting citizen told them he was a 'Secessionist', whereupon the Federals carried off all of his horses that were in sight.

A short while thereafter a party of Confederates rode up, wearing the blue overcoats which effectually (?) concealed their grey uniforms and propounded a similar question. Hoping by his protestations of loyalty to recover his lost property he told them he was a 'Union man', whereupon they too took such horses as they could find.

CONFEDERATE HORSEMEN SCOUTING BETWEEN ANANDALE AND FAIRFAX.
Sketched by A. R. Waud.