Morning in the Shenandoah Valley dawned with an overcast of clouds. James E. Taylor felt the raw, crisp early November air as he leisurely rode on a Union wagon supply train from Berryville north to Summit Point, Virginia. One of the war’s greatest combat artists knew better than to ride alone and risk his “scalp at the hands of the ubiquitous Mosby.” A company of riders soon overtook Taylor’s wagon train, “proceeding at a trot, who proved to be the famous, ‘Blazer Scouts’ and as the captain slackened up to converse with the commander of the train with whom I rode, I was not long in gleaning that the Scouts were starting on an expedition in quest of Mosby, to wipe out his command or getting wiped out,”1 Taylor wrote in his sketchbook journal.
The combat artist sensed the opportunity of a lifetime: ride and sketch Blazer and obtain safe passage to Charles Town, West Virginia, his destination. Humble, self-effacing, and not seeking publicity, Blazer assented to Taylor’s request, but only after the artist assured him he understood the grave danger he faced by riding with the Scouts.
Taylor knew full well the risks—he had placed his life on the line for his profession for years, producing some of the most exceptional battlefield art. Combat artists “braved every hardship and peril of the war, often under fire and in the most dangerous positions during battle in the business of their vocation as observers and recorders of events,” and they “justly rank among the heroes of the war,”2 one historian of the time explained.
Taylor embodied keen skills of observation and attention to detail in describing Blazer: “high cheekbones, straight, outshooting sandy hair, mustache and chin whiskers, eyelids slanting downward to the nose in which set steel gray eyes of eagle sharpness, marred somewhat by a kink or cross in one, but to judge by their glitter, vision evidently flawless. If he possessed the power of vision of his chief [General George Crook], he certainly had a great advantage in detecting from afar the stealthy approach of the meteoric Mosby.”3
Blazer had esotropia, which caused one of his eyes to point inward, but his leadership, presence, and handsome features more than made up for the physical flaw. With a hunter’s sense, “[he] was celerity itself, and like the Prussian [cavalry general] Seyderlitz was constantly turning up at the most unseasonable hours where least expected, and when least desired by the partisans.”4 The Scouts traveled down the Berryville Pike, looking for trouble, “proceeding leisurely to Charles Town over open ground as if courting attention from Mosby’s lookouts in the ridge, and doubtless, a glass was trained on them from thence, as desired.”5 They passed a landscape touched by war: a solitary lime kiln standing upright in a field, coupled with the remains of a torched railroad bridge, alongside countless scars of conflict. Riding in closed ranks to prevent being flanked, rushed, and ambushed by Mosby, the Scouts generally conducted missions that spanned three days. They hunted all day, set up their camp in remote areas late at night, and saddled up before dawn to look for Mosby.
That afternoon, the Scouts dismounted in a grove. “The troopers throw their bridles over their horses’ necks, seek the shade to lay by till summoned to the saddle,”6 as Taylor described, a scene he immortalized on his sketchpad.
Eventually, the cavalcade reached Taylor’s destination, and he shook Captain Richard Blazer’s and the “brave and courteous” first lieutenant Thomas K. Coles’ hands. After they parted, Taylor ominously wrote, “I quickly pass from the presence of the gallant band.… Where one seeks fight, he generally finds it.”7
In the middle of October, a soldier fitted a leather strap, a noose, around Private Albert Gallatin Willis’ neck as several troopers clambered up a poplar tree behind him. The troopers walked across a branch and their combined body weight brought the limb closer to the ground. The twenty-year-old only had seconds left on earth as he courageously faced his executioners.
Before the war, Willis had been a Baptist divinity student who later boarded with Confederate preacher Thaddeus Herndon in the tiny hamlet of Scuffleburg, nestled in a remote area in the Blue Ridge Mountains. After joining Company C of the 43rd Battalion in December 1863, his life dramatically changed. At Scuffleburg, months later, Willis escaped a Union dragnet that stormed the parson’s home. Ranger Frank Rahm, who would later also have his own remarkable escape, recalled that night: “Kemper and Willis [the two Rangers slept in the same room] heard the commotion and soon had their door rapped on, with a demand to open, which they refused to do when the Yankees began firing through the door. The house was situated on an incline; hence it was some distance to the ground, being on the third floor. As soon as firing commenced, although in their ‘evening apparel’ they raised their window and out they went.” Since the Federals occupied the front of the house, Willis made his way for the hayloft behind the home, “where he burrowed deep in the hay.” The Union troopers stormed the barn and searched the loft, “and hunted every square inch in the place as they thought, but to no avail. Willis told me of their having probed the hay with their sabres, and many times, in guarding his front, he would gently guide the sabre so as to throw it on one or the other side of him.”8 Willis escaped capture, and so did Kemper, who nearly froze to death hiding behind a tree stump on the side of the mountain after eluding his pursuers. The incident was not Willis’ first—he had survived other skirmishes and narrow escapes. He earned some much-needed rest in October when Mosby granted him a furlough and he and another, unknown Ranger traveled south toward Willis’ home in Culpeper, Virginia, for downtime away from the war.
Fall in the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge is beautiful: leaves turn brilliant hues of orange and red, vibrantly bathed in color. The faint scent of burning embers lingered in the air as Willis’ horse went lame outside a patchwork of houses called Gaines Crossroads, the present-day Ben Venue. A local blacksmith’s hammer and anvil masked the clatter of the approaching Union troops of the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry as they bore down on the two unsuspecting Confederates. Overwhelmed by numbers, Willis and the other Ranger surrendered without a fight, and the troopers from 2nd West Virginia (a unit that supplied many men to Blazer’s Scouts) took the two men to Colonel William Henry Powell’s headquarters located north of the tiny hamlet of Flint Hill. Powell explained, “Having learned of the willful and cold-blooded murder of a United States soldier by two men (Chancellor and Meyers, members of Mosby’s gang of cutthroats and robbers) some two miles from my camp a few days previous, I ordered the execution of one of Mosby’s gang whom I had captured.”9
Days earlier, the Union soldier Powell referenced had wandered into Flint Hill (a Confederate area) dressed in civilian clothes. The individual claimed to be a deserter and asked for work. Meyers, a civilian, spent several days with the man and a Confederate soldier named Chancellor, who had returned to Flint Hill to visit his father, Meyers’ neighbor. Meyers and Chancellor became convinced the man was a “spy feigning desertion” and placed him in custody. The three men started riding to Gordonsville, northwest of Richmond. Chancellor and Meyers planned to deliver him to Confederate authorities. According to Mosby, the individual was a spy; he could have been a Jessie Scout.10 After traveling ten miles, the “spy” attempted to escape several times. Chancellor warned him that his next escape attempt would be his last. The spy attempted yet again; Chancellor stopped him with a bullet. While both men were Confederates, neither man was a Ranger. Nevertheless, Colonel William Powell blamed Mosby’s men for killing the probable Jessie Scout.
After Powell found the man’s body, he ordered his men to torch “the residence, barn, and all buildings and forage on the premises of Mr. Chancellor.”11 Next, the Union colonel wanted to make examples out of Mosby’s men. But after he found out Willis was a divinity student, he told the young Ranger he could claim an exemption as a chaplain. Willis refused. Powell then ordered the two prisoners to draw straws to determine who went to the gallows. The other Ranger drew the shorter straw and burst into tears. “I have a wife and children, I am not a Christian and am afraid to die,” the unlucky man pleaded. Willis replied, “I have no family, I am a Christian, and not afraid to die.”12
Willis prayed as the noose was fitted around his neck. Suddenly, the branch violently arced skyward, and the noose tightened. Willis’ lifeless body swung from the tree limb. A placard attached to his corpse read, “Hung in retaliation for a Union soldier said to have been killed by one of Mosby’s men.”13 Willis would not be the last man executed, as a deadly series of slayings and retribution followed in his wake.
Seeking guidance to combat the cycle of violence, Mosby wrote to Lee, “During my absence from my command, the enemy captured six of my men near Front Royal. These were immediately hanged by order and in the presence of General Custer.* They also [hanged] another [Willis] lately in Rappahannock. It is my purpose to hang an equal number of Custer’s men whenever I capture them.”14
Lee concurred with Mosby’s approach and said, “I do not know how to prevent the cruel conduct of the enemy toward our citizens. I have directed Colonel Mosby, through the adjutant to hang an equal number of Custer’s men in retaliation for those executed by him.”15
On November 4, each Union prisoner pulled a scrap of white paper from a hat. Twenty-seven slips of paper. Twenty blanks. Seven marked. Drawing one of the unlucky seven would equal execution.16 Mosby planned to carry out Lee’s orders as a reprisal for the killing of Mosby’s men.
Several of Custer’s men prayed aloud. One by one, each gingerly plucked a slip of paper. Some exhaled sighs of relief; others cried, “Oh God, spare me!” One drummer boy became hysterical before extracting a blank slip, to his great relief.
But the second drummer boy was not so lucky.
Upon hearing that a young man stood among the condemned, John Singleton Mosby immediately ordered his release. Both drummer boys were excluded as the nineteen men who earlier thought they had cheated death again drew lots. One selected the mark of death.
The Confederates soberly bound the condemned and mounted them on horses. As lightning arced across a dark sky and cold rain fell, the prisoners and Mosby’s Rangers rode toward the Shenandoah Valley. Mosby ordered four men to be shot and three hanged.
The Rangers marched the seven prisoners into the Shenandoah through Ashby’s Gap, where they crossed paths with Ranger captain Richard Montjoy, who also had prisoners in tow from an earlier engagement. One of Mosby’s prisoners noticed Montjoy’s Masonic ring and entreated the officer for his life. Montjoy obliged and exchanged one of his prisoners for the condemned Mason.
Yet all did not go according to plan. One of the prisoners asked for time to pray. Kneeling down, he managed to free his hands, jump to his feet, punch the nearest captor in the face, and escape into the woods. Surprised by the sudden turn of events, the Confederate soldiers immediately fired their pistols at three other men sentenced to death. However, one of the revolvers misfired, and a second of Custer’s men escaped into the night. The Confederates hanged the remaining three prisoners, adorning one with a note that read, “These men have been hung in retaliation for an equal number of Colonel Mosby’s men hung by the order of General Custer, at Front Royal. Measure for measure.”17
When Mosby’s men returned and explained that two of the prisoners had escaped, the Gray Ghost was unperturbed by the news. Instead of executing more men, he decided to send John Russell to Winchester under a white flag with a letter for Sheridan. Mosby detailed the facts and stated, “Since the murder of my men not less than 700 prisoners, including many officers of high rank, captured from your army by this command, have been forwarded to Richmond, but the execution of my purpose of retaliation was deferred in order, as far as possible, to confine its operation to the men of Custer and Powell. Accordingly, on the 6th instant, seven of your men were, by my order, executed on the Valley Pike, your highway of travel. Hereafter any prisoners falling into my hands will be treated with the kindness due to their condition, unless some new act of barbarity shall compel me reluctantly to adopt a course of policy repulsive to humanity.”18 Russell returned with a letter from Sheridan. Neither man ever discussed its contents, but the reprisal killings halted.
* Custer did not directly give the order, but members of his 5th Michigan were involved in the murder of two of Mosby’s men.