l without charge and held incommunicado. His wife
went to Washington to plead his case before President Johnson, who
treated her with a great deal less than courtesy, and then before
General Grant, who promptly gave her a written order for her husband's
release.

Then, in 1868, he did something which would have been social and
political suicide for any Southerner with a less imposing war record.
He supported Ulysses S. Grant for President. It was about as
unexpected as any act in an extremely unconventional career, and, as
usual, he had a well-reasoned purpose. Grant, he argued, was a
professional soldier, not a politician. His enmity toward the South
had been confined to the battlefield and had ended with the war. He
had proven his magnanimity to the defeated enemy, and as President, he
could be trusted to show fairness and clemency to the South.

While Virginia had not voted in the election of 1868, there is no
question that Mosby's declaration of support helped Grant, and Grant
was grateful, inviting Mosby to the White House after his inauguration
and later appointing him to the United States consulate at Hong Kong.
After the expiration of his consular service, Mosby resumed his law
practice, eventually taking up residence in Washington. He found time
to write several books--war reminiscences and memoirs, and a volume in
vindication of his former commander, Jeb Stuart, on the Confederate
cavalry in the Gettysburg campaign. He died in Washington, at the age
of eighty-three, in 1916.

The really important part of John Mosby's career, of course, was the
two years and three months, from January, 1863, to April, 1865, in
which he held independent command. With his tiny force--it never
exceeded 500 men--he had compelled the Union army to employ at least
one and often as high as three brigades to guard against his
depredations, and these men, held in the rear, were as much out of the
war proper as though they had been penned up in Andersonville or Libby
Prison.

In addition to this, every northward movement of the Confederate Army
after January, 1863, was accompanied by a diversionary operation of
Mosby's command, sometimes tactically insignificant but always
contributing, during the critical time of the operation, to the
uncertainty of Union intelligence. Likewise, every movement to the
south of the Army of the Potomac was harassed from behind.

* * * * *

It may also be noted that Sh