I found Carlo D'este's error and noted it previous to reading your research
as I wondered why a "killer" would have been released. "Mosby had come
prepared" gives rise to wonder about the incident - the preception
circumstances around the fact (it was a shooting and a wounding - true fact)
but why? - (not exactly self-defense?)
I reckon this is very much in line with Virginia History discussion.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Carter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 2:43 PM
Subject: Re: 01242232Z13 Patton And Re: Rommel
Carlo D'este apparently did not research John Singleton Mosby very well. The
only men Mosby ever killed were Union soldiers during the Civil War. As a
student at the University of Virginia (where he had already graduated in
Greek Language and Literature), Mosby was expelled and imprisoned for a year
for shooting another student in the neck with a pepperbox pistol- the
student survived. While not exactly self-defense, his assailant, George R.
Turpin, was a student nearly twice his size with a nasty reputation for
manhandling students that he fought- Mosby had come prepared. John Singleton
Mosby spent to seven months in jail, where he read law with his prosecuting
attorney, William J. Robertson, and later after his release, set up a law
practice in Bristol, Virginia. After the Civil War, Mosby developed a
friendship with President Ulysses S. Grant. After an attempt was made on
Mosby's life, Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him as Consul to Hong Kong. When
Hayes left the Presidency, Mosby lost his position. Grant, just before he
died, contacted Leland Stanford of the Southern Pacific Railroad about
finding a position for Mosby, and he became the railroad's attorney in
California, where he made frequent visits to the Patton residence. He later
served as an attorney for the Justice Department in Nebraska and in Alabama,
before returning to Virginia and private practice.
John
The Stuart-Mosby Civil War Cavalry Museum
Centreville, Virginia
Sent from my iPad
John C. Carter
[log in to unmask]
Cell: 703-501-4578
On Jan 24, 2013, at 5:33 PM, Walter Waddell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> With respect to connections: Patton's early childhood influence from the
> frequent presence of John Singleton Mosby with the Patton family is
> documented on page 40 of Carlo D'este's, near definitive; "Patton - A
> Genius For War", Harper Collins; 1995.
>
> "As for living heroes, George came to know a frequent guest of the Patton,
> the infamous Col. John Singleton Mosby, the Confederate guerrilla
> (pronounced correctly by using the Spanish "y" in place of the double
> "ll") leader. A prewar lawyer who had learned the law in prison after
> being expelled from the University of Virginia and imprisoned for killing
> another student. Mosby had migrated to California to work for ht Southern
> Pacific Railroad. Mosby delighted the impressionable young Georgie Patton
> with tales of the Civil War, all of which the boy absorbed like a sponge."
>
> "Thus, by the time he entered his teens, Patton had not only learned
> firsthand of the heroics of the men of the Confederacy but had been
> indoctrinated in the classics: Shakespeare, Homer, Sir Walter Scott, and
> Kipling; books about heroes, kings, ..., and above all, to the great
> soldiers of history: Caesar, Belisarus, Scipio, Hannibal, Napoleon, Joan
> of Arc, and Joachim Murat. All engendered in Patton a sense that he was in
> this life a reincarnation of soldiers of the past, that he had served in
> bygone armies and fought in the famous battles of history."
>
> I bring this to your attention for these two personal observations about
> this report: (A) I found D'este's work to a "love story" from Patton's
> birth to the outbreak of War World War II. I drew this to a point of my
> conclusion from the post World War I singular episode where Beatrice
> knocked a full Colonel to floor of a formal ballroom society affair and
> beat him repeatedly until "Georgie" rescued the Colonel and pulled his
> wife (Beatrice was born and bred high) from the poor wretch who made the
> mistake of making a disparaging remark about her husband in her presence
> and not that of her husband's; and, (B) the development of the character -
> Patton - by the constant reference to those past heroes and his dedication
> to emulate their virtues (sans "killer Mosby") as it apples to the
> following quote from the motion picture; "HUD". Therein, the character
> grandfather, played by Melvyn Douglas, tries to dissuade the younger
> brother from the nefarious attitude of his older brother, HUD, with this:
> "Little by little, the look of the country is changed by the men we
> admire."
>
> A find a lot of history in that last line. Correctly or incorrectly,
> that's what draws me to investigation of our past.
>
> Regards, Ray
>
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