For an account of the Raid and Linclon's reactoin see Mosby Spreads Fear From Fairfax to Chain Bridge
Mosby's Report of the raid is posted here.
"Camp Near Fairfax [Station],
"March 9, 1863
". . .Our Colonel has come into camp this minute and brought sad news. He says that our General and his aides was taken prisoners last night by the Rebs over to the Courthouse. He made it his quarters over there. It is three miles from our campground. The boys do not feel very bad about it for he had no business to camp so far from his brigade. We do not see him [but] once a month. He has not been to our brigade since we came to this camp. He was out to the dance the other night. Some of the boys say they wish they had got him that night. We have so many camp stories, perhaps this is one, but I am afraid it is not. Hope it is. I think we shall have some fun with them before long. Hope they will not get us as they did our General. I think they will have something to do. They will have to work smart to get our Colonel for he is on the watch for them all the while. ~ Abram Rowell, private Co. C, 16th Regiment, Letter, March 9, 1863 [sold at auction] aslo foun here
"Fairfax Station March 9th, 1863
"John then showed them to his room where he was a sleeping. But further threatening on the part of the rebels had him to know where to the General’s room. The officer entered wore the General’s room. The officer entered, woke the General and told him that Fitz Lee commanded the place and that he, the General, was his prisoner. So Stoughton got up, dressed and followed his captor without more ado. Col. Wyndham was in Washington, so he was not captured and Col. Johnston of the 5th New York cavalry who with his wife and children making his headquarters in the village escaped by jumping from his window in his shirt and secured himself under a barn floor not 10 feet from where a rebel guard was stationed.
"Some of the men taken belong to the 16th Vermont and 2 of them to Company B to wit Putty Baker and Barney Pratt.
"I do not learn that even a gun was fired by our guards. It was a most complete surprise and was a brilliant exploit Gen. Fitz Lee used to live close to here. He owned the ground on which our camps now on. Nearly all his cavalry was raised in this county and they knew every road, lane, path, stream and house intimately. Besides, there is good reason for believing that they have spies in at Fairfax Court House nearly every day.
"I had a narrow escape. I went up to the court house after dinner yesterday. It got to be dark before I got through supper at Spencer Jackson’s where I boarded which I was Provost Marshall and they wanted I should stay all night it was so dark and rainy. I was also urged to stay at headquarters. My horse was put up in the General’s barn. I waited until it was time for the moon to rise, say 1/2 past 9 and then got my horse and started for camp. Up to this time it had not rained and although raining, the sun had set in a totally clearly sky. I had barely mounted my horse when the rain began to fall, slowly at first. My path was across lots, through woods, brush, and mud.
"I could not see a rod before me to discuss anything. The sky was pitch black and the rain increasing. I rode on about two miles until I came to a house of a good Union man where some of our sick soldiers are quartered and as the rain was then falling in torrents and I had a stream to ford, I concluded to stay the night. This remaining, I was in camp before breakfast. It is proper to remark that at 2 o’clock it nearly cleared off, and the moon shone out. I was away from the courthouse about an hour and a half before the raid. Had I stayed all night, my horse and saddle, would have been captured and I should have been on my way to Richmond. As it is, I am here and very well.Your affectionate husband Charles.~ Lt. Col. Charles Cummings, Sixteenth Regiment, Letter March 9, 1863. VHS.
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