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On April 18, 1864, author Herman Melville rode through the twilight, embedded with the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry, on a scouting mission deep in enemy territory.a book that was not considered a critical or commercial success during the author’s lifetime. Before the Civil War, Melville tried his hand at poetry and submitted a book of verse to his publisher. The manuscript had been rejected months earlier.
Weeks earlier in 1864, Mosby had launched a devastating ambush on the Union cavalry at Anker’s blacksmith shop about two miles from Dranesville, Virginia. Hiding in a pine thicket, Mosby relayed his orders: “Men, the Yankees are coming, and it is very likely we will have a hard fight. When you are ordered to charge, I want you to go right through them. Reserve your fire until you get close enough to see clearly what you are shooting at, and then let every shot tell.
The Rangers obtained the bulge and ran through the stunned 150-trooper patrol from the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry and the 16th New York Cavalry. In total, the Rangers lost one man but killed over a dozen Federals and captured over fifty more and scores of their horses. Lowell invited Melville to join the Massachusetts-California conglomeration on what the writer would immortalize as The Scout toward Aldie. The slow-moving force cautiously entered “Mosby’s Confederacy” even though Washington, DC, loomed in the distance. Rangers seemed behind every tree.
Mosby used psychological warfare and played on the fears of all those who entered his realm, which Melville described in verse:The frustration and futility of war are captured in Melville’s account of the raid, as the Federals chased ghosts and were haunted by their own fears. On the second day of the mission, Lowell received a tip that the Rangers planned to attend a wedding in Leesburg that evening. Lowell divided his force and boldly sent part of it on foot to the town.
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