Reminiscences of a Mosby Guerrilla #233381

In the following pages Mosby's men will sometimes be spoken of as Guerrillas, and their enemies as Yan kees, in the same spirit in which these terms were used during the war. Mosby's men made the word Guer rilla honorable from 1863 to 1865, and no fair-minded Southerner can deny that the Union Army has made the world respect the word Yankee. With a pardonable oversensitiveness some of the old comrades have objected to the use of the word Guerrilla, but they need not be offended nor fear disparagement; their fame is established for all time. The men who fought them know what they were; and, after all, history is built upon facts. It is enough to know their old Commander never has objected to the use of the word Guerrilla, for he once wrote to the author asking to have an article written for the New Y ork Herald which Should deal with his old negro body-servant, Aaron, and to head it, The Nestor of Mosby's Guerrillas. It would sound odd to a Mosby man if he habitually referred to his friends, the enemy, as the Federals or the United States troops or even the Union soldiers. He knew them in the old days as Yankees, and as such he still remembers them; and moreover they are good enough Yankees for him, and it was not his good fortune to find many cowards among them.