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L Verge · 06-12-2015, 06:35 PM

(06-12-2015 02:30 PM)SSlater Wrote: Me. again. This Harney business ain't easy. But my failures spur me on to be a little more creative - look where you never looked before. Thus, I have stumbled on to an angle that does not bring us closer to Harney, but it concerns him and it's a story that you have never read before. So, it should be entertaining.

When Richmond directed Mosby to cooperate with Thomas N. Conrad on an unnamed mission, Mosby was short of available troops, but he says that he manage to create a new Company H, and he sent them to escort Harney into Washington.

That's fine, but where did he find enough men to create a completely new Company, this late in the war. I assumed that he took a few men from each of the existing Companies. I was wrong. He created a [b]NEW Company of good men, well horsed, well armed, and full of combat experience. HOW?

On February 17, 1864, The Partisan Ranger Act was repealed by the Confederate Congress and the affected Rangers were Ordered to sign up with a Regular Cavalry Unit. (Everyone, but Mosby and The McNeill's Rangers -they were allowed to continue as Rangers.)

That's easier said than done. There was one Ranger Group that was just onerous enough to say NUTS. (At least, I think they said that. - Maybe not.)

These mavericks were the "Chinquapin Rangers" from South-East Fairfax County, VA. - They fought on through the summer of 1864, as Rangers, until September 6, 1864, when they were specifically ORDERED to desist and to join Gen. Fitzhugh Lee in the Shenandoah Valley. NUTS again.

I don't know whether they tried to join Mosby, or Mosby invited them to join up with him. Then despite all Orders to the contrary, The "Chinquapin Rangers" joined Mosby.

Apparently Mosby had worked, before this with them, when they were Company H in the 15th Virginia Cavalry. He knew them to be - Good men, Well horsed, etc.

In summary, "The Chinquapin Rangers" were the Mosby unit, that that assisted Harney in his attempt to reach Washington.

PS. In Sept 1864, when the "Chinquapin Rangers" showed up in Mosby's Camp, was the same time period when Mosby sent another Ranger Unit to King George County to assist Conrad's attempt to nab Lincoln.

There's a side story that goes along with the Chinquapin Rangers. The citizens of Prince George's County, Maryland, (home to Surratt House) took up a collection during the Civil War to honor Gen. Robert E. Lee. They chose to gift him with a fine pair of golden spurs. How to get them to the General was another problem.

One mission that the Chinquapin Rangers undertook was to personally pick up and deliver the gold spurs. The spurs passed through to Miss Elizabeth Frobel, who brought the spurs to the William S. Reid farm on Franconia Road in Fairfax County, Virginia. With thousands of Union troops nearby, the gold spurs were picked up and transported by Chinquapin Rangers to General Lee, who received them while he was at a general review of his army near Culpeper Courthouse. Some sources claim that Lee wore the golden spurs at Appomattox as he arrived impeccably dressed for his surrender to Gen. Grant.

BTW: Have any of you ever eaten chinquapins? When I was a child, you could find the bushes in most overgrown areas, and the tasty nuts grew in little pods. The bush is a form of elm, however, and were pretty much wiped out during the disease period of the mid-20th century (at least here in Maryland) that wiped out American elms. Now, I don't want to hear any Yankee jokes about the Chinaquapin Rangers being a little "nutty"...