Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-09-16
Mosby Writes on Lee.

HE TELL OF HIS INTERVIEWS WITH THE GREAT
COMMANDER.
Gen. John S. Mosby has written an inter-
esting letter to San Francisco paper. telling
of his interviews with Gen. Robert E. Lee.
''When l was private" he writes, II met
Gen. Lee but once. Shortly after the battles
around Richmond, when he defeated McClel-
Ian. was captured by a raiding party of
Northern cavalry and taken to Washington,
where l was kept ten days in the Old Capitol
prison and then exchanged.
During my Imprisonment I kept my eyes
open, and obtained some valuable infOrma-
ton. AS soon as we landed at the point of
exchange on James river | started to walk
twelve miles under an August sun to carry
the information of the movement to Gen Lee
l knew it would result in corresponding
movement on our part.
81 shall never forget the awe and oppres-
sion l felt when came into the presence of
the great commander His benevolent look
and kind manner soon put me at ease. He
| Immediately started courier with the news
to Stonewall Jackson. The result was Jack
sons victory at Cedar Mountain, where he
defeated Pope before reinfOrcenents from
Burnside reached him.
AFTER exhausting my budget of informa-
ton General Lee asked me how I was captur-
ed. told him that was at Beaver Station
waiting for the train when regiment OF
Northern cavalry Harris Light gobbled me
up. He asked Couldn't you run away?'
answered: Yes, but not so fast as horse
~ brought with ut me from Fort Monroe
lemonade was then unknown in Richmond.
AS l rose to leave / took out half dozen
lemons and laid them on the table. He said,
in the gentlest way. that l had better give
them to the sick and wounded in the hospitals;
that he didn't need them. [ have no doubt
that some wounded soldier got them.
II was common soldier in my shirt sleeves,
covered with dust, without any political influ-
My feet were sore and blistered from the long
walk through the hot sun, yet felt that the
privilege of the few minutes interview with
the great General, who then filled the world
with his fame. was ample compensation for
all the tolls and dangers OF war that l had
undergone. 1t was certainly a distinction to
which l had not permitted myself to aspire
1--WE did not meet again until after Gettys-
burg, in his tent on the Rapidan. In the
mean time had become an officer, and he
knew me by reputation. l doubt however,
whether he ever knew that the soldier who
gave him the lemons was the same person
whom he saw then.
Although the weight of the Southern Con-
federacy then rested on his shoulders, he did
not seem to be oppressed by it OF discouraged
by defeat. His spirit was as bold as it was
on the day that he drove Mcclellan out of his
intrenchments before Richmond. My COM
fAdiu was Jutll III culDIyC, yCG liz 7SC6llcu W
take as much interest in our petty forages as
in the operation of our army corps. A thor
Ough soldier by training. familiar with war
In its theory and details, yet there was no
man in the Southern army less martinez and
fonder of adventure than Gen. Robert +. Lee.
Gin February. 1865, went to see HIM at his
headquarters near Petersburg His army was
then reduced to skeleton, but his spirit was
as combative as ever. Although he knew that
the end was near. his manner and converse
iO0ioa % If 10 wa met &c hold
and as aggressive in temper as on the day that
he routed Pope at Bull Run. Looking over
in the direction of Grants lines, he said:
we could whip those people now if we could
under ground.
Gin the spring of 1870, few months before
his death, l was at the Exchange Hotel in
Richmond, when Gen. Lee arrived there from
Lexington. He had been advised to take a
trip South for the benefit of his health He
looked worn and haggard, and it was hard to
realize that he was the fierce warrior that
had so often welded the thunderbolts of
battle. I went to his room and we had long
talk l had met him in public after the war,
but this was the only time we were ever alone.
The war still threw its shadows around us,
and while we talked of the present and the
future we were thinking of the past, I felt
oppressed, almost overwhelmed, by the great
was no longer my commander, yet his word
even then would have been law to me.
"SOon after leaving his room met General
Pickett. I told Pickett that had just left
General Lee, and that he looked like dying
man. There had been an enlargement be-
tween them. Pickett said that he would call
and pay his respects to General Lee il would
90 with him, but that he did not want to be
alone with him. So Returned with Pickett.
The interview lasted but few minutes. The
conversation was formal, with no reference to
the cause of their difference. l do not think
they ever met again. In few months the
great soldier joined the shadowy host that had
crossed the river before him. Fate denied
him victory, but blessed him with glorious
immOrtal itV'"