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the dozens ol other successful raids the Rangers had accomplished in the passed eighteen months of their existence. When this day would end one of the most tragic episodes during the war would occur.
After setting up their ambush and engaging the enemy’s ambulance train Mosby’s Men realized that they were being surrounded by General Wesley Merritt’s Cavalry Division, who was following the ambulances. Mosby’s retreat became a running gunfight towards their escape route, Chester Gap.
During this action six of Mosby’s Men were unhorsed, captured and executed without a trial. Four of these were shot before the citizens of the town under the cruelest circumstances. The other two captives were offered freedom if they would disclose Mosby’s headquarters.
They refused and were hanged on a walnut tree, which stood on the hill just north of town. The true horrors of war came to Front Royal. Mrs. Sallie Davis-Roy, a child resident of Front Royal who witnessed the drama on Sept. 23, 1864, bests describes how the citizens felt.
Years later she still remembers the terror, the shouts and the gunfire. “The Dark Day of 1864 is photographed in my memory”, she wrote, “I have often wished I could blot it out, for it clouded my childhood”.
All roads led to Front Royal on Sept. 23, 1899, when over 3,000 people converged on the town for an important ceremony. Representing nearly every Southern State and some as far north as New York, they had come to unveil the lofty monument erected by the survivors of Mosby’s celebrated Rangers in memory of their comrades who had been captured and executed by the Federals exactly 35 years before.
The Ladies’ Warren Memorial Association and the Wm. Richardson Camp, United Confederate Veterans, assisted in
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