As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
The dregs of the Union were a plentiful supply and that is why the South had such success for so very long of a time. It is most interesting to read the assessments of Union officers telling tales, and then to read the realities experienced by Southerners who were the subject of the statements.
For example in the Shenandoah, General Phil Sheridan embarked upon a battle to drive John Mosby from the area in a scorched earth policy against the villanous Confederate citizenry. According to Mosby, Sheridan failed at the plan as the population hated Sheridan and not Mosby, and when Sheridan marched south, Mosby was still operational in strength.
I bring all of this up, as John Mosby mentions the last battle he commanded in, in the Civil War. It was a battle that unfortunately he failed in killing one Yankee, that I would hope Libby Custer would have bought the bullets for, as I certainly would have.
The quote:
"News of the surrender, or, rather, the evacuation, of Richmond came to me one morning in April, 1865, at North Fork, in Loudoun County, where my command had assembled to go on a raid. Just two or three days before that I had defeated Colonel Reno, with the Twelfth Pennsylvania Cavalry, at Hamilton, a few miles from there, which was the last fight in which I commanded. Reno afterward enjoyed some notoriety in connection with the Custer massacre. My purpose was to weaken the armies invading Virginia, by harassing their rear."
Mosby, John Singleton, 1833-1916
General Sheridan was an effective commander. As much as he had the brilliant Boy General in George Custer in his command doing yeoman's work, he had the incompetent George Crook who almost lost the Shenandoah, as Crook could not even rally his men when the Confederates surprised him.
As one can read from the Mosby memoir, that in the Shenandoah was another worthless buffoon in Col. Marcos Reno of Pennsylvania Cavalry. The best thing which could have happened for America was if Mosby had killed this incompetent coward in Reno in April 1865.
I gather and place tidbits of evidence on the Little Big Horn and one of those pieces was the defeat of Col. Reno, who somehow must have attained rank by political appointment and commerce, as he was not that old in 1876 at the Little Big Horn.
Weigh the evidence on this in there was General George Custer, reduced after the war to Lt. Col., after all of the leadership the Boy General gave to America, and one grade below him was this worthless Marcos Reno who was a Major who got whipped by John Mosby.
If John Mosby had simply shot Marcos Reno in 1865, and if the United States Goverment had any sense in warfare, it would have had him in command at the Little Big Horn attacking wing under General Custer, and in that, that mass assassination would never have taken place.
It is always good to know where the sh*t leaks out of at the start of tragedies and Marcos Reno was losing in the Shenandoah under Sheridan just like he lost under Custer in Montana.
agtG
