ew Mosby recruit was a
man of high intelligence, reckless bravery and ultra-rugged
individualism.

For his home territory, Mosby now chose a rough quadrangle between the
Blue Ridge and Bull Run Mountain, bounded at its four corners by
Snicker's Gap and Manassas Gap along the former and Thoroughfare Gap
and Aldie Gap along the latter. Here, when not in action, the Mosby
men billeted themselves, keeping widely dispersed, and an elaborate
system, involving most of the inhabitants, free or slave, was set up
to transmit messages, orders and warnings. In time this district came
to be known as "Mosby's Confederacy," and, in the absence of any
effective Confederate States civil authority, Mosby became the
lawgiver and chief magistrate as well as military commander. John
Munson, who also wrote a book of reminiscences after the war, said
that Mosby's Confederacy was an absolute monarchy, and that none was
ever better governed in history.

Adhering to his belief in the paramount importance of firepower, Mosby
saw to it that none of his men carried fewer than two revolvers, and
the great majority carried four, one pair on the belt and another on
the saddle. Some extremists even carried a third pair down their
boot-tops, giving them thirty-six shots without reloading. Nor did he
underestimate the power of mobility. Each man had his string of
horses, kept where they could be picked up at need. Unlike the regular
cavalryman with his one mount, a Mosby man had only to drop an
exhausted animal at one of these private remount stations and change
his saddle to a fresh one. As a result of these two practices, Union
combat reports throughout the war consistently credited Mosby with
from three to five times his actual strength.

In time, the entire economy of Mosby's Confederacy came to be geared
to Mosby's operations, just as the inhabitants of seventeenth century
Tortugas or Port Royal depended for their livelihood on the loot of
the buccaneers. The Mosby man who lived with some farmer's family paid
for his lodging with gifts of foodstuffs and blankets looted from the
enemy. There was always a brisk trade in captured U. S. Army horses
and mules. And there was a steady flow of United States currency into
the section, so that in time Confederate money was driven out of
circulation in a sort of reversal of Gresham's law. Every prisoner
taken reasonably close to Army pay day could be counted on for a few
dollars, and in each company there