Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1131

Rh the consulship at Hong Kong, under the administration of President Hayes, he won distinction by the efficiency and integrity of his official life. Subsequently he returned to the practice of law and made his residence at San Francisco.

William H. Mosby, since the war a prominent citizen of Bedford county, was born in Albemarle county, Va., within a mile of the State university, and was reared there until he had reached the age of eight years, when he accompanied his family to Amherst county. He was earnestly in sympathy with the struggle of Virginia, against the invasion of the Northern armies, but was too young during the early period of the war to go to the front. But in October, 1863, he enlisted in the famous Forty-third Virginia cavalry battalion, commanded by his brother, Colonel Mosby, and was identified with the services of the battalion during the remainder of the war. He was on duty mainly along the Potomac, in Loudoun and Fairfax counties, and in the Shenandoah valley, regions in which Mosby's handful of troopers neutralized as many as thirty thousand Federal troops, and prevented the contemplated movement of Sheridan from Front Royal against Richmond. Private Mosby became adjutant of this famous battalion at the age of seventeen years and bore secret dispatches from the Confederate leader to General Lee, which he had not yet delivered when the army of Northern Virginia was compelled to lay down its arms. Subsequently he was associated with Lieutenant-Colonel Chapman in a visit, under a flag of truce, to General Hancock at Winchester, to ascertain the terms on which Mosby's command could surrender, a trust which indicates the estimation in which his abilities were held by his comrades and their intrepid colonel. He was once slightly wounded in a night attack on Harper's Ferry, and, at Front Royal, in the fall of 1864, his horse was shot and he narrowly escaped capture. After his parole he returned to his father's farm and was occupied there until the death of his father, when he removed to Bedford City and entered the retail grocery trade. In March, 1883, through the personal friendship of Gen. U. S. Grant, he was appointed postmaster at that city, and in 1892 he was again appointed for a term of four years. He is still engaged in mercantile pursuits and is prosperous in his enterprises. In December, 1872, he was married to Miss Lucy Booth, of Baltimore, and they have five children: Alfred D., Henry B., Virginia, Annie and Robert O.

J. Edward Moyler, a prominent citizen of Petersburg, Va., who was connected with the Confederate service, both as a cavalry soldier and as a naval surgeon, is a native of Sussex county, born August 26, 1841, the son of John Q. and Mary T. (Vaughn) Moyler. Mr. Moyler was a student in the university of Virginia in 1861 and was one of the "Sons of Liberty," the university company which went to Harper's Ferry, April 18th. This company, commanded by Capt. James T. Tosh, later aide-de-camp for General Colston, was thoroughly drilled and, while at Harper's Ferry was armed from the arsenal seized by the Virginia forces. On returning to the university the company was disbanded, and Mr. Moyler then joined the Sussex Light Dragoons, a cavalry company which was subsequently assigned to the Thirteenth Virginia cavalry regiment. In this command he became assistant adjutant, but while the regiment was at Brandy Station, in March, 1862, he was detailed for duty in