"Although that region was the Flanders of the war, and harried worse than any of which history furnishes an example since the desolation of the Palatinates by Louis XIV, yet the stubborn faith of the people never wavered. Amid fire and sword they remained true to the last, and supported me through all the trials of the war."[169]
This last quotation brings to our story one of the most picturesque figures in either army and one whose numerous exploits in Loudoun and her adjoining counties were truly of that inherent nature from which popular legend and folklore evolve. John Singleton Mosby was born at Edgemont in Powhattan County, Virginia, on the 6th December, 1833. He was educated at the University of Virginia, was admitted to the Bar and when the war broke out was practicing his profession in Bristol. Promptly volunteering for service, he became a cavalry private in the Washington Mounted Rifles and when that became a part of the 1st Virginia Cavalry, Mosby was promoted to be its adjutant. Subsequently he served as an independent scout for General J. E. B. Stuart until captured by the Federals and imprisoned in Washington. After his exchange he was made a captain in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States by General Lee,[170] later a major and then colonel, serving on detached service under General Lee's orders. During the winter of 1862-'63 he built up his command known as Mosby's Partisan Rangers (which had more formal status as the 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry) in the territory between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, where, for the remainder of the war, he continued to operate; but the heart of his domain was thus described
"From Snickersville along the Blue Ridge Mountains to Linden; thence to Salem (now called Marshall); to the Plains; thence along the Bull Run Mountains to Aldie and from thence along the turnpike to the place of beginning, Snickersville."[171]
[170] _Mosby's Rangers_, by J. J. Williamson, 15.
This was the true "Mosby's Confederacy," as it became known, and Mosby's Confederacy in very fact it was, albeit a precarious and but loosely held realm. By Mosby's orders, no member of his command was to leave these bounds without permission.