Editorial

John S. Mosby (1833-1916), the “Gray Ghost,” commanded a Confederate cavalry unit during the Civil War. After the war he served as U.S. consul to Hong Kong (1878- 1885) and later worked as an attorney for the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1901, at sixtyseven years of age, he became special agent for the General Land Office in the U.S. Department of the Interior. He was charged with investigating violations of federal land laws in three districts of Colorado and Nebraska where ranchers had long been accustomed to fencing in large tracts of public land.

The first major battle of the Civil War was fought in northern Virginia about twenty-five miles southwest of Washington, D.C. on July 21, 1861. Both the Union and Confederate armies were composed of barely trained volunteers. Both sides expected a single, decisive battle would end the war. The outcome of the Battle of Bull Run (known as the Battle of Manassas in the South) signaled instead that the war would likely be long and bloody. After an all-day fight in sweltering July heat, the Union army seemed poised for victory when fresh Confederate troops suddenly counterattacked.