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Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Charles H. Ruggles, Civil War Letter regarding Prisoners Taken by Mosby's Rangers, A&M 1147, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Purchase from Argosy Book Stores, 1958 November28

Biographical / Historical

Majors Ruggles and Moore were captured during a Confederate operation commonly referred to as the "Greenback Raid", one of many such guerrilla operations conducted by Colonel John S. Mosby. Between the hours of 2 am and 3 am on 14 October 1864, Mosby's Rangers (formally called the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry) attacked a military train traveling along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad several miles west of Harpers Ferry. Paymasters Ruggles and Moore were aboard the train, with a payroll of $173,000 to be used to pay General Sheridan's soldiers. Both paymasters and 18 other soldiers were taken prisoner and sent to the Confederate Military Prison at Danville, Virginia. Major Ruggles died in the military prison on 10 February 1865.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Civil War - Union soldiers.
• Civil War - raids and raiders.
• Civil War -- Mosby's Rangers
• Jefferson County (W. Va.)
• Moore, Major Edwin.
• Mosby, John Singleton, 1833-1916
• Ruggles, Charles H.
• Ruggles, Major David Colden.
• United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Prisoners and prisons