Special operations require special men. Elite units, especially in modern warfare, often turn the tide of war, but these engagements often require a seemingly super-human dose of bravery and audacity from the men involved.
That audacity was on full display one hundred and sixty-one-years ago this week, when the Union Army had one of their best chances to capture and destroy Mosby’s Rangers, the comparatively small elite unit, at that time, of Confederate guerilla warriors terrorizing Federal troops in Northern Virginia.
In late March 1863, after a cold day on horseback, approximately sixty of Mosby’s Rangers, “almost as motley a crowd as Falstaff’s regiment” previously unknown to one another but bound together by their “love of adventure and confidence in their leader,” gathered at Miskel Farm (near Broad Run in Loudoun County) to spend the night en route to…
