room with the news that several hundred
Union cavalrymen were approaching. Lavender grabbed the two carbines,
for which he had a quantity of ammunition, and they all ran outside.

Sending the younger Edmonds boy to bring re-enforcements, Mosby,
accompanied by John Edmonds, Munson, and Jake Lavender, started to
follow the enemy. He and Munson each took one of Lavender's carbines
and opened fire on them, Munson killing a horse and Mosby a man. That
started things off properly. Cole's Marylanders turned and gave chase,
and Mosby led them toward the rendezvous with Jimmy Edmonds and the
re-enforcements. Everybody arrived together, Mosby's party, the
pursuers, and the re-enforcements, and a running fight ensued, with
Cole's men running ahead. This mounted chase, in the best horse-opera
manner, came thundering down a road past a schoolhouse just as the
pupils were being let out for recess. One of these, a 14-year-old boy
named Cabell Maddox, jumped onto the pony on which he had ridden to
school and joined in the pursuit, armed only with a McGuffy's Third
Reader. Overtaking a fleeing Yank, he aimed the book at him and
demanded his surrender; before the flustered soldier realized that his
captor was unarmed, the boy had snatched the Colt from his belt and
was covering him in earnest. This marked the suspension, for the
duration of hostilities, of young Maddox's formal education. From that
hour on he was a Mosby man, and he served with distinction to the end
of the war.

* * * * *

The chase broke off, finally, when the pursuers halted to get their
prisoners and captured horses together. Then they discovered that one
of their number, a man named Cobb, had been killed. Putting the dead
man across his saddle, they carried the body back to Piedmont, and the
next day assembled there for the funeral. The services had not yet
started, and Mosby was finishing writing a report to Stuart on the
previous day's action, when a scout came pelting in to report Union
cavalry in the vicinity of Middleburg.

Leaving the funeral in the hands of the preacher and the civilian
mourners, Mosby and the 150 men who had assembled mounted and started
off. Sam Chapman, the ex-artillery captain, who had worked up from the
ranks to a lieutenancy with Mosby, was left in charge of the main
force, while Mosby and a small party galloped ahead to reconnoiter.
The enemy, they discovered, were not Cole's men but a California
ba