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Mosby's Rangers Mosby
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Mosby's Rangers Mosby
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ABOUT Mosby's Rangers

Mosby's Rangers is a mounted skirmishers unit for North & South, a civil war mod for M&B Warband.

Mosby's Rangers, officially known as the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry, was an irregular unit of partisan cavalry in the Confederate army during the American Civil War. The 43rd Battalion was formed on June 10, 1863, at Rector's Cross Roads, near Rectortown, Virginia. By the summer of 1864, Mosby's battalion included six cavalry companies and one artillery company, comprising about 400 men.

Noted for their lightning strikes and their ability to consistently elude pursuit, the Rangers disrupted Federal communications and supply lines. Mosby felt that "a small force moving with celerity and threatening many points on a line can neutralize a hundred times its own number." Speed, surprise and shock were the true secret of the success of Mosby's Command. A small intrepid mounted force could charge a much larger one, and with the terrorizing advantage of surprise, rout them. If attacked themselves the guerrillas would sometimes ride away a brief distance and then round on their attackers and charge back into them, panicking and scattering them in the melee.

According to the memoirs of former partisan Munson, Mosby welcomed volunteers attracted by the glory of the fight and the allure of loot, and had an eye for intelligence, valor, resourcefulness, but "what Mosby liked best was youth. He agreed with Napoleon, that boys make the best soldiers... mere boys, unmarried and hence without fear or anxiety for wives or children." A few partisans were wizened old men in their 40's, but most were in their late teens or early 20's; two paroled after the war at Winchester were only 14 years old.

It is difficult to evaluate the contribution of Mosby's raids to the overall Confederate war effort. In his memoirs, John Munson stated that if the objective was simply "to annoy the enemy," they succeeded. In discussing as Mosby's "greatest piece of annoyance", he mentioned the Greenback Raid, in which Mosby's men derailed a train and captured a $170,000 payroll from the paymasters of Sheridan's army (each of the 80 raiders received a $2100 share, though Mosby himself took nothing).

On the other hand, Mosby's guerrilla operations were not highly regarded even within the Confederate Army. Brigadier General Thomas Rosser urged disbanding Mosby's command in a letter addressed to General Robert E. Lee. Rosser agreed with the Union that Mosby's men were not soldiers but glorified thieves — and bad for morale, because his regular troops were jealous. General Lee sent the letter on to the Confederate War Department with an endorsement recommending "the law authorizing these partisan corps be abolished." On later reflection, however, Lee concluded that whatever the military utility of the rangers in the larger scheme of things, Mosby was "zealous bold, and skillful, and with very small resources he has accomplished a great deal."
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