cavalry and one of mounted artillery, officered by a colonel, a
lieutenant-colonel, and a major, with the usual complement of company
officers. But the entire force was seldom combined. Instead of this,
they would be divided into two or more detachments operating in
different places. So it was not at all unusual for an attack to be made
the same night upon Sheridan's line of transportation in the valley,
upon the pickets guarding the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, upon the
outposts in Fairfax County, and upon the rear of the army manoeuvering
against Lee. This explains--what at the time seemed to many of the
readers of the Northern newspapers a mystery--how Mosby's men could be
in so many different places at the same time. The safety and success of
the Rangers were enhanced by these subdivisions, the Federals having
become so alert as to make it extremely difficult for a large command
either to evade their pickets or manoeuver within their lines. From
fifty to one hundred men were all that were usually marched together,
and many of their most brilliant successes were achieved with even a
smaller force. Mosby had only twenty men with him when he captured
Brigadier-General Edwin H. Stoughton. With these he penetrated the heart
of the Federal camp, and carried off its commander. General Stoughton
was in charge of an army of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, with
headquarters at Fairfax Court-house. One dark night in March, 1863,
Mosby, with this small detachment, evaded the Federal pickets, passed
through the sleeping army, and with their camp-fires gleaming all
around him, and their sentinels on duty, aroused their general from his
slumbers, and took him captive with thirty-seven of his comrades.

But the novelty of Mosby's mode of warfare consisted chiefly in the
manner of subsisting, quartering and protecting his men. The upper
portion of Loudon and Fauquier counties, embracing a circuit of about
thirty miles in diameter, was then known as "Mosby's Confederacy." By a