The Unvanquished by Patrick K. O'Donnell

Author:Patrick K. O'Donnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

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A two-horse buggy jostled up and down on the bumpy Valley Pike on October 25. Riding in the carriage, General Alfred Duffié, one of the war’s poster boys for stolen valor, felt secure, flanked by an escort of over fifty cavalry troopers. The Army had recently reassigned him to a new command. Impatient with the slow pace of the escort, Duffié rushed ahead of the convoy in the carriage with a ten-trooper escort.

Nearby, Mosby and several companies of Rangers hovered, waiting like hawks for a larger wagon train slowly approaching from Martinsburg in the distance. The Rangers prepared another familiar ambush with their mountain howitzers. Unexpectedly, Duffié’s carriage suddenly entered their sights.

The Rangers’ guns barked. “Killing several, we dispersed the cavalry … under heavy fire of shell and musketry,” remembered one Ranger. Duffié immediately knew the peril he faced and ordered the driver to ride to the safety of the larger approaching Union wagon train.

Duffié’s carriage moved at “breakneck speed … the general and his adjutant tossing from one side to the other—over the top of each other—hats off—now down, then up. Every few moments, a shell would burst close to the carriage—down their heads would duck to the bottom of the carriage.”13

Riding for his life, Duffié came within 200 yards of the larger wagon train when two Rangers swooped down, secured the carriage’s horses, and, under the barrels of their guns, presented the prisoners to Mosby.

“Who are you?” Mosby asked his latest captive.

“General Duffié,” the Frenchman responded.

Apparently, Duffié’s reputation preceded him, and Mosby dismissively ordered, “Take him to the rear.”14

Things turned personal on their way back to Mosby’s Confederacy when the Rangers learned that Captain Blazer and his Scouts had encamped near Kabletown and they turned from their destination to hunt Blazer. The Rangers rushed into Blazer’s camp only to discover that the Union Scouts had left shortly before their arrival, though “his fires were still burning brightly.”15

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