John Singleton Mosby - the "Gray Ghost"

"The Gray Ghost is an American historical television series which aired in syndication from October 10, 1957, to July 3, 1958. The show is based upon the true story of Major John Singleton Mosby, a Virginia officer in the Confederate Army, whose cunning and stealth earned him the nickname "Gray Ghost".

Synopsis
The Gray Ghost stars Tod Andrews as Major Mosby, Phil Chambers as Sergeant Myles Magruder, and Sherwood Price in five episodes as General J.E.B. Stuart, also known for his cavalry skills. Recurring characters on the program were Donald Foster as Braddock, Jean Willes as Ansonia, Ralph Clanton as a general, Dick Jones as Ned Underwood, Otto Aldis as Mueller and John Banner as Major Heros von Borcke.[1]
Gray Ghost was cancelled after one season of thirty-nine half-hour episodes. High production costs may have made[weasel words] the program too expensive to continue."

"RICHMOND, Va., April 28, 1897 - "Colonel John S. Mosby shows a distinct improvement in his condition. He is exhibiting remarkable recuperative power and unless inflammation supervenes, where the brain is bruised from the hoof of the animal, which destroyed his eye, and where the resting of a blood clot is suspected, his recovery will be steady."

December 1897 Denver "Colonel John Mosby is the guest of his son in this city. He has been in Washington to look after legal affairs of the Southern Pacific railway, of which he is one of the attorneys. "

July 1901 "Colonel John Mosby, the ex-Confederate cavalry leader, has been appointed a special agent of the federal land office and assigned to duty in Nebraska."
8 x 10.5, Department of the Interior letterhead, August 15, 1901. Letter to “Chinn ” - most likely Benton Chinn - one of his Civil War company - and "longtime Eastern factotum"")  written from Akron, Colorado. In part: “I arrived here a week ago. This is a station on the Burlington road—112 miles east of Denver. The climate is delicious—like Virginia in October. My companions are cowboys—coyotes—& cattle. I hope to be transferred & have my headquarters at Denver very soon…I wrote to Miss Kate about sending my portrait to Clarke’s to be framed.”

In

September 1901 Denver "Colonel John S. Mosby, the civil war veteran and ex-guerrilla, was at the Albany hotel yesterday for a few hours. He has come to Colorado to investigate the alleged theft of government lands at Akron, which he pronounces mere talk. He is now an appointee of President McKinley, whom he supported in the last two campaigns, and he holds the position of special land officer of the United States government. Colonel Mosby does not change much with passing years."

September 22, 1901 "About seventy-five cancellations of timber land culture leases about Akron, Colo., are probable. Colonel John S. Mosby, Sr., appointed special land agent by President McKinley last July, registered at the Oxford last night after several weeks at Akron investigating frauds.
"The majority of cases," said he, "are where people take a lease and then do not cultivate the property."

October 1901 Fort Morgan "Col. Mosby of war fame, now federal officer under the U. 8. Interior department, came up from Akron to this county last week in his office capacity, leaving Fort Morgan for home Monday night."

May 1902 the Wray Rattler reported “U.S. Land Inspector Col. Mosby, of Washington, arrived in Haigler Tuesday night.”

June 6, 1902 "Colonel John S. Mosby bade the people of Akron good bye last Saturday, and is now a resident of Sterling, where his head quarters will be until further orders."
Akron Press.









" LINCOLN, Neb., Aug 17, 1902 "Big excitement has been caused in the cattle regions of the state by the appearance of Colonel John S. Mosby, of confederate fame, as agent of the land office, with orders that every fence on government land must come down within sixty days or United States marshals will cut and destroy them and subject every offender to a fine of $1,999 or a year in prison. There is talk of organized resistance to the orders of Mosby, and several meetings have been held to take steps to keep the fences intact. Ten million acres of the public domain in Western Nebraska have been fenced in by the 3 big cattle herd owners, and have driven off hundreds of bona fide settlers."

January 1904 "On Sunday, Dec. 6, Col. John S. Mostly reached his three-score and ten and celebrated the day at the residence of his sister, Mrs. Russell, in Washington having as companions Gen. Marcus Wright and Major 'Bob' Hunter. The colonel bears his years easily and gracefully.
In writing to a friend he said that on Dec. 6, 1864, he took dinner with Gen. R. E. Lee at his headquarters before Petersburg, which was then within a mile of Gen. Grant's headquarters. There was a leg of mutton for dinner, and it was such a notable addition to the customary fare that Gen. Lee said he thought the staff must have gotten it unlawfully."


September 1905 "D. W. Irwin, a prominent Akron real estate dealer, was arrested in Denver, yesterday, charged with perjury, alleged to have been committed in order to defraud the government of abandoned timber claims lying in the eastern part of the state, the alleged fraudulent transactions having gone on for years. Irwin learned that a warrant was out for him, and gave himself up to the United States marshal. He will be taken before the United States commissioner today. Perry C. Beeney, county treasurer of Washington county, and Peter Campbell, former registrar of the United States land office at Akron, were also arrested at Akron by Deputy Marshal E. A. Davis on warrants sworn out on the same charge, and the three will be held to answer before the grand jury. A warrant is out also, it is said, for David Townsend, former sheriff of Washington county. The scheme is said to be one of the slickest practiced for years, and it is claimed the government has been defrauded of thousands of dollars. That crooked work was prevalent in the district named was published in The News months ago. The men are arrested on the same charge that the clerk of the district court at Akron was arrested under a few weeks ago. McLean is the name of the clerk, and he was in jail in Denver for several days.
Long Under Suspicion.
The investigation has been going on since last December under the supervision of Special Land Agents W. M. Gilchrist and Nicholas J. O'Brien. The land office at Akron was closed last July, and points as to the facts of the case leaked out then, but were denied. The alleged fraudulent transactions were made possible by the old timber grants. Five or six years ago congress passed a tree culture act, by which persons who took up lands were required to plant five acres the first year and the same amount each succeeding year for eight years. The arid condition of the land discouraged those who took up land, and many abandoned their claims. By representing that the tree act had been repealed, the four men accused are said to have secured the signatures of the holders of the claims, and in this way gained title to lands which they afterward sold. Patents were issued in many instances, but some were held up for investigation, and in these instances the land will revert to the government. The four men are said to have employed professional witnesses to swear falsely to their ownership of the lands.

Irwin at Markham.
Irwin is stopping at the Markham hotel, and will appear before United States Commissioner Capron today to give bond. He wired to Akron, and August Muntzing came down last night to go his bond. He denied that he had defrauded the government in any way, and said that the arrest of himself and the others connected with the case was a piece of political spitework. "I have not done a thing I would not do again," he said, "and everything that I did in regard to these lands was with the knowledge and advice of the United States officials. The talk that I perjured myself or misrepresented facts in getting tho titles of the lands is absolutely false. The former holders of the land appeared before a United States commissioner when they proved up on their claims, and they knew what they were doing when they sold their land. The land is worthless for anything but grazing land, and they got anywhere from $5O to $lOO for 160 acres. I have been engaged in the real estate business in Akron for nineteen years, and have never been accused until now of working any graft. Colonel Mosby came out to Akron several years ago as an inspector to investigate the same case, and when he went away he told me that the only fraud was when the government sold the land to the people. The government enacted the tree culture law eighteen or twenty years ago and revoked it five years ago."