V.P. Hughes, A Thousand Points of Truth: The History and Humanity of Colonel John Singleton Mosby in Newsprint (XLIBRIS, 2016).
Given command over a semi-independent unit of partisan rangers in the Army of Northern Virginia, a dashing young Confederate major led a cavalry raid at the Fairfax county courthouse, deep behind Federal lines. With just a handful of men and the element of surprise, he captured three Federal officers (including a brigadier general asleep in his tent), fifty-eight soldiers, thirty horses, and all of their supplies. Awakening the general with a slap across his backside, the major curtly asked the general if he knew of “Mosby.” “Yes, have you caught him” inquired the dazed and confused general. “I am Mosby,” replied the major, to the general’s horror.
John Singleton Mosby was and is one of the most controversial figures in the War of Southern Independence – an era with no shortage of controversy. In Valerie Protopapas Hughes’ new book A Thousand Points of Truth: The History and Humanity of Col. John Singleton Mosby in Newsprint, published by Xlibris, she argues forcefully that Mosby is “gravely misunderstood” and “wrongly misrepresented.” By drawing exhaustively (and I do mean exhaustively) from contemporaneous newspapers throughout his life, Ms. Hughes has written not only a refreshing corrective to the misunderstanding, misinformation, and myth of Mosby, but also a useful history of Mosby historiography. In other words, Ms. Hughes has not just written about what actually happened, but about what did not happen – a history of what is true and what is false.
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