John Mosby, George Custer, and the Front Royal Executions
APPENDIX B
Two columns of gray riders cautiously approached the Federal ambulance train. Some moved their holsters around to the front of their belts, while others put wads of tobacco in their cheeks, anxiously awaiting the signal to attack. These men hailed from the 43rd Battalion of Virginia Cavalry, more popularly known as “Mosby’s Rangers” after their commander, Col. John Singleton Mosby. For the upcoming assault, Capt. Walter Frankland’s Rangers would strike the head of the train while Capt. Samuel Chapman would lead a contingent into its rear.
As Frankland sent his men forward, he could not have known the impact of his attack—or its consequences.
The Federals had set out just days earlier as part of Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan’s plan for assaulting the Confederate position on Fisher’s Hill. Sheridan had assigned Maj. Gen. Alfred Torbert, his chief of cavalry, to lead the divisions of Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt and Brig. Gen. James Wilson east into the adjoining Luray Valley. Torbert was then to ride south, reenter the Shenandoah Valley at New Market Gap, and trap the retreating Confederates.
Setting out on the morning of September 21, Merritt, less one brigade, rendezvoused with Wilson at the town of Front Royal. Wilson had engaged Brig. Gen. Williams C. Wickham’s Confederate division. Finding that Wickham had abandoned his position, the Federal horsemen moved to overtake the Confederates the next morning. The Yankees advanced to Milford only to find the Rebels drawn up in a formidable position. After several hours of spirited skirmishing, Torbert called off the attack and began to withdraw.
The monument erected by Mosby’s men in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Front Royal (left) served as much as a mark of defiance as of commemoration. (DD/PG)
Continuing their march through September 23, Merritt’s division rode back to Front Royal. It was there Frankland’s and Chapman’s Rangers fell upon the column. In the ensuing attack, the Rangers found themselves outnumbered, and the Union horsemen quickly got the better of them. Scattering their foes in every direction, the Union troopers managed to capture six Rangers.
One of the Union wounded was Lt. Charles McMaster of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry. Lieutenant McMaster was found by his comrades at the end of the fight, dismounted and shot through the head but still alive. The circumstances of McMaster’s wounding were a subject of controversy. Although the Rangers denied the assertion, McMaster claimed he had been shot and left for dead after he had formally surrendered. This assertion did not take long to make the rounds.
Lieutenant Charles McMaster claimed he had surrendered to Confederates, who then shot him anyway. Confederates denied the allegation. The incident sparked a controversy that turned war personal. (WRHS)
Mosby’s command was notorious for their guerrillastyle hit-and-run tactics. The Rangers routinely operated east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in an area known as “Mosby’s Confederacy.” While moving through this area, no Federal supply train, picket post, or straggler was safe from Mosby’s men. When the Valley campaign of 1864 opened, the Rangers moved to augment Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s army. Making their presence known on August 21, Mosby raided a wagon train at Berryville. The relentless raids and ambushes had worn down the nerves of the Federals. Word of McMaster’s wounding after surrendering was too much to bear. The act must be avenged.
Torbert, Merritt, and George Custer were in Front Royal as the column filed into town. Also present was Col. Charles R. Lowell, McMaster’s brigade commander.
At some point, someone from the officer pool sent word down the chain of command for the six captured Rangers to be executed.
David Jones and Lucien Love were taken behind the Methodist Church and shot. Henry Rhodes was 17, lived in the village, and had only ridden out to seek adventure with the Rangers that morning. He was taken to the Rose Hill farm and gunned down. Like Rhodes, the Union troopers took Thomas Anderson to the Criser farm and shot him. The final two captives, Thomas Overby and a man named Carter were hanged.
In the days following these ghastly events, John Mosby blamed George Custer. On November 6, Mosby retaliated. After capturing a number of men from Custer’s division, Mosby ordered seven of them to hang near Rectortown. However, the executions were botched, and only three soldiers died.
In the postwar years, Mosby continued to blame Custer for the events at Front Royal. When his memoirs were published in 1917, well after Custer’s death, Mosby still held him accountable. The damning evidence, according to Mosby, was that Custer did not mention the incident in his official report. His silence was implication enough.
However, available evidence suggests that the order to execute the Rangers came from Wesley Merritt, Custer’s division commander. For Custer, then, it was impossible to explain in his official report an order that he never issued.
While Custer very well may have known of Mosby’s charges, it is unclear whether he responded directly to them publicly. Despite the feelings of their chief, many of Mosby’s Rangers accepted as truth that Custer did not order the executions.
On September 23, 1899, more than 200 Rangers returned to Front Royal to dedicate a monument to the men who were executed that day. The New York Times claimed that it was the largest gathering of Mosby’s command since the end of the war. More than 5,000 individuals from as close as West Virginia and as far away as New York joined the veterans in remembering their comrades. The keynote address was delivered by one of the Rangers, Maj. Adolphus Richards. Interestingly enough, during the speech, Richards completely exonerated Custer of having any responsibility for the events that day.
Still standing in Prospect Hill Cemetery, the obelisk bears the names of those who died—a tribute of remembrance to one of the darkest hours of the nation’s darkest years.
Union Brig. Gen. George Custer (top) and Confederate Col. John Mosby (bottom), two of the most romanticized figures of the war, clashed at the center of one of the great controversies of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign. (LOC)
