In his book, Mosby's Rangers, Jeffry Wert quotes one Union officer reporting that the Rangers "were upon us, swooping in like Indians, yelling like fiends, discharging their pistols with fearful rapidity." The Rangers traveled by back roads and knew the shortcuts through the rolling hills. Their favorite tactic was to surprise the enemy, often as he slept, sweeping into a federal camp like a "hurricane."

On Virginia's Interstate 66 near Haymarket, the sign presents a horse rearing as its rider, in a sweeping cape, waves a plumed hat. The same dramatic image is posted at a dozen other locations in Prince William, Fauquier, Loudoun, Warren and Clarke counties. The horse-riding man represents Col. John Singleton Mosby.

For two years during the Civil War, the Confederate guerrilla and his Rangers ambushed Union troops in those counties. Seen as a savior by secessionists in the area, he was denounced by the federal command as a terrorist. The image of Mosby astride his horse and the words "Mosby Heritage Area" appear on 14 large signs placed in the past year along the boundary of a 1,600-square-mile property in Virginia's first heritage area.

The signs are the work of the Mosby Heritage Area Association and were financed through a federal grant from the Department of Transportation. The association is headquartered in Atoka, a hamlet outside Middleburg, where Mosby officially organized his band of partisans into the 43rd Battalion of the Virginia Cavalry, Company A. The brief organization ceremony on June 10, 1863, took place in the Caleb Rector house, now the headquarters of the association. The association has sponsored several two-day conferences on Civil War subjects as well as on cultural aspects of the region.

It's pretty hard to travel anywhere in the five-county area and not be in Mosby territory. The Virginia native raided supply trains, seized military horses and snatched unsuspecting soldiers in a wide section of what was then farmland, stretching from the Shenandoah Valley to Fairfax.

He became famous in the North and the South because reporters loved telling of his exploits, particularly the time he kidnapped Union Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Stoughton from his bed. The area the Confederates patrolled became known as "Mosby's Confederacy" and Mosby was nicknamed the "Grey Ghost," for his tendency to appear suddenly, then disappear back into the countryside.

At the war's end, the Rangers stood unvanquished, earning a place among some of the finest guerrilla warriors in history, Wert wrote. When Union officials demanded Mosby accept the same surrender terms offered Gen. Robert E. Lee -- to relinquish arms and horses, sign a parole and go home -- the Grey Ghost refused. Instead he disbanded his command. He did not surrender.

[Excerpts from Washington Post Article 01/13/2002 by Linda Wheeler]