Before another shot from the Confederate’s gun penetrated the car’s stove, the Union troops watch riding on the train indiscriminately shot a dozen shots into the woods, leading to a horrifying blast of steam and metal. The Rangers advanced and pillaged the station. Before the local Yankee army, who had been called by the sound of the fight, arrived, they first helped a holding who had broken his leg off the wreckage. They next torched the vehicles and scattered before they arrived. About a mile from the ambuscade, the Rangers ‘ attempts to block their escape were followed by the 5th New York Cavalry, the 1st Vermont, and another North products. However, Mosby ordered a block and Chapman unlimbered the gun and fired a picture into the Union army instead of holding off. The Rangers hurried through the beginning and thundered down the road again toward Greenwich, a small village where the Union soldiers were scattered. Instead of scattering his people and directing them to retreat in different directions, Mosby wanted to keep the cannon as” a place of honor” with Yankee on all sides. He instructed Chapman to limber the howitzer and travel down Burnwell Road. In the ensuing hand-to-hand combat with the Union advance guard, Mosby and several of his Rangers bravely set up a rear guard, including” the gallant Captain Hoskins, who fell from the horse mortally wounded.” However, Sam Chapman had to use valuable time to set up the gun on a hill close to Grapewood Farm, which was owned by Warren Fitzhugh. The Union cavalry was funneled into a kill zone by a narrow country lane about 100 yards from the Fitzhugh house flanked by fences. As Mosby rode up to Chapman and the other Rangers who were carrying the gun, he observed that” their faces beamed with what the Romans called the gaudiacertaminis, 1 and they had never looked so happy in their lives.” In the ranks of New Yorkers, the shell detonated. Unwavering, their leader yelled,” I think we can get that gun before they fire again. Let’s move” !12Another of Chapman’s grapeshot shells detonated among the Union riders ‘ small lane. The piece hurled metal balls, similar to a giant shotgun, penetrating the flesh of horse and man, killing three and wounding several, including the leader, who took two balls of grape to the thigh. The New Yorkers repeatedly charged as Rangers countercharged from the side of the road, forcing the Yankees to turn around and launching their Colts at the corner. From there, the surviving New Yorkers joined the 1st Vermont Cavalry.
The New Yorkers, bolstered by the Vermonters, now one hundred strong, charged up the country road again. At point- blank range, about fifty yards, the cannon belched more of its deadly iron, slaying and wounding more men. Mosby ordered a charge as the Federals roared, and the Rangers drove the Yankees down the hill’s base.
The Yankees finally succeeded, and the ground around Chapman’s cannon turned into a bloody hand-to-hand battle in which both Union and Confederate forces both fell. Sam Chapman, a preacher in a fight, stood by his gun until he lost all of his bullet wounds.
His Union captor threatened,” I’m going to finish you”.
” Why? I am your prisoner now”, the Ranger responded.
” Yes, but you shot me here in the shoulder”.
” Well, I suppose I had a right to, as we had not ceased firing then” ,13 argued Chapman.
The troopers carried Chapman and Captain Hoskins to Grapewood14 and later to The Lawn, a mansion owned by a fellow Englishman, Charles Green, in Greenwich. At The Lawn, Hoskins, in great pain from his wounds, called on Chapman, and the two men” tried to cheer each other up “.15 The next day, the British officer died before Chapman’s eyes, and Green buried his body in the nearby church cemetery—his grave can be visited.
John Singleton Mosby Portrait, 1865, William Emerson Strong Photograph Album, Public Domain
Mosby barely avoided capture. Then rode to James Hathaway’s house—one of his many safehouses—and the waiting arms of his wife, Pauline. The men frequently boarded in mansions and plantations in Fauquier and Loudoun Counties, where many of them had families, because they did not go through the same camp life and the outdoors as regular soldiers. But for Mosby on the night of June 8, 1863, the respite was short. A detachment of the 1st New York Cavalry attacked Hathaway’s stately red-brick home and discovered a mocking and secretly livid Mrs. Mosby hiding beneath the bedsheets. The evil guerrilla leader had slipped onto the large branches of a black walnut tree from the second-story bedroom window. Hugging the tree, he hid from the patrol, which looked everywhere but up the tree. 2 Carting off Hathaway, the Yankees left the area—one of the countless close calls the partisan leader survived unscathed.
Patrick K. O’Donnell is a bestselling, critically- acclaimed military historian and an expert on elite units. He is the author of thirteen books, including , his new bestselling book on the Civil War The Unvanquished: The Untold Story of Lincoln’s Special Forces, the Manhunt for Mosby’s Rangers, and the Shadow War That Forged America’s Special Operations, currently in the front display of Barnes and Noble stores nationwide. His other bestsellers include: The Indispensables,  , The Unknowns, and Washington’s Immortals.  , O’Donnell served as a combat historian in a Marine rifle platoon during the Battle of Fallujah and often speaks on espionage, special operations, and counterinsurgency. He has provided historical consulting for DreamWorks ‘ award- winning miniseries , Band of Brothers , and documentaries produced by the BBC, the History Channel, and Discovery. PatrickKODonnell.com , @combathistorian
