by was back at
Middleburg, ready to go to work in earnest.

As before, he scattered his men over the countryside, quartering them
on the people. This time, before scattering them, he told them to meet
him at Zion Church, just beyond the gap at Aldie, on the night of the
28th. During the intervening ten days, he was not only busy gathering
information but also in an intensive recruiting campaign among the
people of upper Fauquier and lower Loudoun Counties.

* * * * *

In this last, his best selling-point was a recent act of the
Confederate States Congress called the Scott Partisan Ranger Law. This
piece of legislation was, in effect, an extension of the principles of
prize law and privateering to land warfare. It authorized the
formation of independent cavalry companies, to be considered part of
the armed forces of the Confederacy, their members to serve without
pay and mount themselves, in return for which they were to be entitled
to keep any spoil of war captured from the enemy. The terms "enemy"
and "spoil of war" were defined so liberally as to cover almost
anything not the property of the government or citizens of the
Confederacy. There were provisions, also, entitling partisan companies
to draw on the Confederate government for arms and ammunition and
permitting them to turn in and receive payment for any spoil which
they did not wish to keep for themselves.

The law had met with considerable opposition from the Confederate
military authorities, who claimed that it would attract men and horses
away from the regular service and into ineffective freebooting. There
is no doubt that a number of independent companies organized under the
Scott Law accomplished nothing of military value. Some degenerated
into mere bandit gangs, full of deserters from both sides, and
terrible only to the unfortunate Confederate citizens living within
their range of operations. On the other hand, as Mosby was to
demonstrate, a properly employed partisan company could be of
considerable use.

It was the provision about booty, however, which appealed to Mosby. As
he intended operating in the Union rear, where the richest plunder
could be found, he hoped that the prospect would attract numerous
recruits. The countryside contained many men capable of bearing arms
who had remained at home to look after their farms but who would be
more than willing to ride with him now and then in hope of securing a
new hor