The Haunt of the Gray Ghost: Day-long Tour
Item Number: 100085911
Time Left: CLOSED
Value: $300
Online Close: Dec 1, 2006 2:00 PM EST
Bid History: 0 bids
Description
The Haunt of the Gray Ghost: Day-long Tour
Uncover the South of legend on a day-long guided tour of Mosby's Confederacy in northern Virginia, where so many young New Englanders spent time searching for the Rebel Virginia Guerilla/Partisan Ranger Mosby, "the Gray Ghost". One who did was Ralph Waldo Emerson's son-in-law Major Wm. H. Forbes, who fought hand-to-hand with Mosby himself at Mount Zion Church. The slavery issue, the John Brown panic, and the secession issue all play a huge role in this border area, and together with the story of "the Gray Ghost", provides an inside look at the South that so much concerned the Transcendentalists. Mosby, himself a lover of Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, conversed by the mails with many of these New Englanders after the War, especially easy when he himself became a Republican.
Attached are a few stanzas of Herman Melville's 1864 poem of Mosby and the fear he created with those Yankees come South, composed after he visited the 2nd Mass. & 13th NY Cavalry west of Washington in April 1864. Melville himself went on a "Scout" toward Aldie (included in the tour)
The Scout toward Aldie
Of what was late a vernal hill,
But now like a pavement bare--
An outpost in the perilous wilds
Which ever are lone and still;
But Mosby's men are there --
Of Mosby best beware.
Great trees the troopers felled, and leaned
In antlered walls about their tents;
Strict watch they kept; 'twas Hark! and Mark!
Unarmed none cared to stir abroad
For berries beyond their forest-fence:
As glides in seas the shark,
Rides Mosby through green dark.
All spake of him, but few had seen
Except the maimed ones or the low;
Yet rumor made him every thing--
A farmer--woodman--refugee--
The man who crossed the field but now;
A spell about his life did cling --
Who to the ground shall Mosby bring?
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Donated by
Rich Gillespie