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Posted on 05/03/2003 12:00:21 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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Perhaps he thought the Englebert Humperdinck name would be vaguely familiar to people (Englebert Humperdinck, opera composer) or was so unusual that people would remember it. Probably the later.
Dixie Ping!
Today's classic warship, USS Montgomery (C-9)
Montgomery class cruiser
Displacement: 2,094 t.
Length: 269’6”
Beam: 37’
Draft: 14’7”
Speed: 17 k.
Complement: 274
Armament: 9 5”; 6 6-pdrs.; 2 1-pdrs.; 3 18” torpedo tubes
The USS MONTGOMERY (C-9), named for Montgomery, Ala., was launched 5 December 1891 by Columbia Iron Works, Baltimore, Md.; sponsored by Miss Sophia Smith and commissioned at Norfolk Navy Yard 21 June 1894, Comdr. Charles W. Davis is command.
Assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron, the new cruiser operated along the eastern seaboard and in the Caribbean. During the Spanish-American War, she cruised near Cuba and Haiti in April 1898 and in May joined the blockade of Havana. She took two prizes, LORENZO and FRASQUITO, 5 May, and shelled the Spanish forts a week later.
In April 1899, MONTGOMERY transferred to the South Atlantic Squadron and operated along the Atlantic coast of South America until returning to the United States and decommissioning at New York 15 September 1900. Recommissioned 15 May 1902, she was assigned to the Caribbean Division, North Atlantic Squadron, and operated in the West Indies until decommissioning at Philadelphia 15 September 1904.
MONTGOMERY recommissioned 2 January 1908 and operated in the 5th Naval District as a torpedo experimental ship. From 1914 to 1918, she served with the Maryland Naval Militia. Renamed ANNISTON 14 March 1918, she was assigned to Division 2, American Patrol Detachment, for patrol and escort duty along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. Decommissioning at Charleston, S.C., 16 May 1918, ANNISTON was struck from the Navy list 25 August 1919 and sold 14 November 1919.
They were something else, weren't they. In an 1865 message to his own troops, Forrest described their accomplishments of the past year as follows:
Soldiers: The old campaign is ended, and your Commanding General deems this an appropriate occasion to speak of the steadiness, self-denial and patriotism with which you have borne the hardships of the past year. The marches and labors you have performed during that period will find no parallel in the history of this war.On the 24th day of December, there were three thousand of you, unorganized and undisciplined, at Jackson, Tennessee, only four hundred of whom were armed. You were surrounded by fifteen thousand of the enemy, who were congratulating themselves on your certain capture. You started out with your artillery, wagon trains, and a large number of cattle, which you succeeded in bringing through, since which time you have fought and won the following battles -- battles which will enshrine your names in the hearts of your countrymen, and live in history, an imperishable monument to your prowess:
Jack's Creek, Estinaula, Summerville, Okalona, Union City, Paducah, Fort Pillow, Bolivar, Tishomingo Creek, Harrisburg, Hurricane Creek, Memphis, Athens, Sulphur Creek, Pulaski, Carter's Creek, Columbia, and Jacksonville are the fields on which you won fadeless immortality.
For twenty-six days from the time you left Florence, on the twenty-first of November, to the twenty-sixth of December, you were constantly engaged with the enemy, and endured the hunger, cold and labor incident to that arduous campaign without a murmer.
To sum up, in brief, your triumphs during the past year, you have fought fifty battles, killed and captured sixteen thousand of the enemy, captured two thousand horses and mules, sixty-seven pieces of artillery, four gunboats, fourteen transports, twenty barges, three hundred wagons, fifty ambulances, ten thousand stand of small arms, forty blockhouses, destroyed thirty-six railroad bridges, two hundred miles of railroad, six engines, one hundred cars, and fifteen millions dollars worth of property.
In the accomplishment of this great work, you were occasionally sustained by other troops, who joined you in the fight, but your regular number never exceeded five thousand, two thousand of whom have been killed or wounded, while in prisoners you have lost about two hundred.
Source: The Galveston Daily News, March 15, 1865
A SALUTE TO THIS FINE SON OF THE SOUTH!
He rode rings around the damnYankees! And they couldn't catch him.
My great great grandfather's Union Cavalry Regiment (the 8th Illinois) was detached from the Army of the Potomac in the Spring of 1864 for the specific purpose of targeting Mosby's Partisan Rangers, and they were so successful in suppressing Mosby's activities that several of his men charcterized the 8th Illinois as the best Union cavalry regiment they had ever encountered.
Captured weapons were sold to the Confederate army, and all too often Union stragglers were found hanging by the side of the road. Although Union penalities for sympathizers could be severe, civilians did all they could to help the Rangers melt invisibly into the landscape, providing food, lodging, and guidance through the web of country roads and paths.
This quote reveales the essential ethical problem with pursuing guerilla warfare: it exposes the local residents to suspicion and the (fully justified) harassment/collateral damage that goes with it. I give R.E. Lee great credit for realizing this when he opted to surrender at Appomattox rather than to run to the hills to transform his army into a guerilla band.
Confederate Col. John Singleton Mosby opted not to surrender his partisan command at the end of the war, but rather to disband the unit and let its members make their own peace with the victorious Yankees. Just 31 years old, Mosby reopened his law practice in Warrenton, VA, the heart of the territory in which his rangers had operated during the war. Mosby earned the enmity of many Southerners when he supported Republican politics and Ulysses S. Grant's bids for the White House. His politics were so contrary to the view held by most Southerners that he was persecuted and ostracized. He and Grant were kindred spirits and held a mutual appreciation for each other. In the summer of 1878 Mosby accepted an appointment as consul to Hong Kong from President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Mosby, a widower, farmed his six children out to relatives and friends and set out for his new post, where he discovered widespread corruption and embezzlement of government funds in the Asian consul offices. He caused an investigation that brought on reform and upheaval in the Far East foreign service offices. Mosby was replaced in Hong Kong in 1885, and upon returning to the United States, found that his old friend Grant, on the day before his death, had secured Mosby a job in San Francisco with the Southern Pacific Railroad.
While in California, Mosby became friends with a young boy named George S. Patton, with whom he would ride while relating Civil War stories. In 1897 he lost an eye and sustained a fractured skull when kicked by a horse. Four years later, at the age of 67, Mosby lost his job with the railroad, and President William McKinley secured for him a job with the Department of the Interior enforcing federal fencing laws in Omaha. Mosby did so with such vigor that local politicians had him recalled, and he was sent to Alabama to chase trespassers on government-owned land before taking a job in the Justice Department, a position he kept until 1910. He died in Washington on Memorial Day 1816.
Fascinating Fact: The last time Mosby saw Grant was when Grant stopped in Hong Kong while on a trip around the world after completing his presidency.
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With the surrender of Lee, Mosby simply disbanded his command on April 20, 1865, rather than formally surrender. His men all obtained their paroles individually, but the terms of Mosby's parole were constantly in doubt. At one stage, his wife and youngest son went to see President Johnson, who had been a guest at their wedding. Johnson was surprisingly unhelpful.
A similar entreaty to General Ulysses S. Grant was more successful.
Grant intervened, giving Mosby immunity, leading to his eventual pardon in 1866. This was to be the beginning of strong friendship with Grant that was to last for the rest of their days.
Never a conformist, Mosby, however, did not "reconstruct" easily. Soon after his pardon in April 1866 in Leesburg, Va., he defied Union orders that no Confederate insignia be worn on the streets. When challenged by federal soldiers, he confronted them, stating that there were "not enough damn Yankees in Leesburg" to strip his uniform of its identification. The insignia stayed, and Mosby rode out of town triumphant.
Mosby decided to settle in Warrenton, in Fauquier county, the heart of "Mosby's Confederacy" where he could be near the men who had fought under him. It was to prove a good decision commercially, as his law practice flourished and he did well on local real estate transactions.
As his friendship with his new patron Grant grew, Mosby soon became an active Republican and staunch advocate of the reunification of the war-scarred nation. It was not an unnatural position to adopt for one who had been an ardent unionist prior to the outbreak of war.
His support for Grant's reelection in 1872 was a decisive factor in Grant's carrying the Old Dominion.
However, it earned him the emnity of many Virginians, depsite the respect that local people felt for his war record. Often, his former Rangers would need to rise to his defense, both verbally and otherwise. While they might not agree with him politically, they would still defend him to the death, as they had done during the war years.
He ran for Congress and was badly defeated, and backed Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel Tilden in the hotly contented Presidential race which is still a source of contention. Local political sentiments against him escalated, and he narrowly escaped injury when someone fired a potshot at him at the Warrenton Railway station.
Partly to reward his political loyalty and partly to get him out of town for his safety, President Hayes appointed him Consul to Hong Kong in 1878.
There was little to hold Mosby to Warrenton, as his beloved Pauline had died not too long before, leaving six children whom Mosby farmed out to friends and relatives before leaving for Hong Kong.
He entertained former President Grant when he came to Hong Kong on an official visit. It was to be the last time that the two old friends and former adversaries would meet, as Grant died shortly thereafter.
After serving in Hong Kong, he received an appointment as the lawyer for the Southern Pacific Railroad in San Francisco. While living in California, he befriended a young boy and regaled him with stories of his wartime exploits. The boy, George S. Patton, grew up to leave a legacy of his own.
After returning to the United States, from Hong Kong, he became active on the lecture circuit and penned his war reminiscences and several other works for magazines and newspapers, spreading his account of his exploits during the war and defending his mentor General J.E.B. Stuart against criticism for his role in the battle of Gettysburg.
His literary efforts were widely appreciated, earning him good reviews in both North and South. As well as making history, he was a respected historian in his own right.
As he got older, his rugged individualism and independence gained him a reputation for irrascibility. 1897, while visiting Charlottesville, Mosby was kicked in the head by a horse, fracturing his skull and injuring his eye.
Unconscious, he was rushed to the University of Virginia hospital. As he regained consciousness, a young doctor leaned over to check him: “What’s your name?” he asked.
Mosby replied, “None of your damned business!” A surgeon in the room to operate on Mosby spoke up, “He’s conscious all right!
At the age of 67, Mosby lost his job with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and President William McKinley secured for him a job with the Department of the Interior, enforcing federal fencing laws in Omaha.
Mosby did so with such vigor that local politicians had him recalled, and he was sent to Alabama to chase trespassers on government-owned land.
Later, he was appinted to a job in the newly-organized U.S. Justice Department, as one of the first Assistant Attorneys General, a position he kept until his retirement in 1910.
His health was extremely good until his last two years when he gradually weakened and frequently succumbed to a number of minor illnesses, all of which weakened him further.
In the spring of 1916 he took a turn for the worse and was admitted to Washington's Garfield Hospital where he died on May 30, 1916 at the age of 82. It was Memorial Day. He is buried in Warrenton Cemetery, next to his beloved Pauline and several of his children, including his eldest son, who had predeceased him by only a few months. Several of his Rangers are also buried there, including the brave Richard Mountjoy of Mississippi.
One obituary referred to him as "the last of the dashing figures of the War Between the States."
Despite his enormous contribution to the Confederate war effort, Mosby never was elevated to the level of public hero that he deserved during his lifetime.
Perhaps if he had fallen in battle like his mentor JEB Stuart, or General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, or the gallant Pelham or his partisan ranger commander contemporary Turner Ashby, he would have been added the pantheon of Confederate heros a little earlier.
However, the slightly built and frail young boy who was expected to die young, managed to outlive most of his contemporaries.
His legendary status existed chiefly in Northern Virginia, with bursts of public adulation nationally centering around the publication of his various reminiscences and Civil War historical works.
It took the work of historian Virgil Carrington Jones, with the publication of his book, Ranger Mosby, in 1944, and subsequent pop-culture spinoffs during the 1961-65 Centennial era to make him the cultural icon that he is today.
Although Mosby was a modest man and didn't place much value on honors, he did always say that he liked to be thanked. The publication of so many books and articles about his exploits, and his popularity as a subject of contemporary Civil War art is a testimony to the fact that today, Colonel John Singleton Mosby, CSA, is well and truly thanked.
"….Mosby's correct estimate of men, his absolute freedom from jealousy and selfishness, his unerring judgment at critical moments, his devotion to his men, his eternal vigilance, his unobtrusive bravery and his exalted sense of personal honor, all combined to create in the mind and hearts of those who served him a sort of hero worship. Long before I ever set eyes on him I looked forward to the day when I would be able to take my hat off in his presence, and offer to follow him."
Ranger John W. Munson
Reminiscences of a Mosby Guerrilla, 1906
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