an armed with a
pair of revolvers and a Spencer repeater, to devote their entire
efforts to eliminating Mosby and his organized raiders.

On September 3, this company caught up with Joe Nelson and about 100
men in the valley and gave them a sound drubbing, the first that the
Mosby men had experienced for some time. It was a humiliating defeat
for them, and, on the other side, it was hailed as the beginning of
the end of the Mosby nuisance. A few days later, while raiding to the
east of Bull Run Mountain, Mosby was wounded again, and was taken to
Lynchburg. He was joined by his wife, who remained with him at
Lynchburg and at Mosby's Confederacy until the end of the war.

During his absence, the outfit seems to have been run by a sort of
presidium of the senior officers. On September 22, Sam Chapman took
120 men into the valley to try to capture a cavalry post supposed to
be located near Front Royal, but, arriving there, he learned that his
information had been incorrect and that no such post existed. Camping
in the woods, he sent some men out as scouts, and the next morning
they reported a small wagon train escorted by about 150 cavalry,
moving toward Front Royal. Dividing his force and putting half of it
under Walter Frankland, he planned to attack the train from the rear
while Frankland hit it from in front. After getting into position, he
kept his men concealed, waiting for the wagons to pass, and as it did,
he realized that his scouts had seen only a small part of it. The
escort looked to him like about three regiments. Ordering his men to
slip away as quietly as possible, he hurried to reach Frankland.

"Turn around, Walter!" he yelled. "Get your men out of here! You're
attacking a whole brigade!"

"What of it?" Frankland replied. "Why, Sam, we have the bastards on
the run already!"

Chapman, the erstwhile clergyman, turned loose a blast of theological
language in purely secular connotation. Frankland, amazed at this
blasphemous clamor from his usually pious comrade, realized that it
must have been inspired by something more than a little serious, and
began ordering his men to fall back. Before they had all gotten away,
two of the three Union regiments accompanying the wagons came
galloping up and swamped them. Most of the men got away but six of
them, Anderson, Carter, Overby, Love, Rhodes and Jones, were captured.

Late that night some of the stragglers, making their way back to
Mosby's Confederacy on foot,