History buffs among you will know (and others can learn by starting here) that the colorful John Singleton Mosby was the commander of one of the South’s most celebrated cavalry units in the Civil War, Mosby’s Rangers. On one of his many exploits he captured a Union general, asleep with a hangover, from his headquarters, along with 58 of his unit’s horses:
Lieutenant Prentiss, awakened by shouts that there were dispatches outside for General Stoughton, was foolish enough to open the door to the raiders. Six men strode in, but it was the smallest of them, the wiry one with the plume in his hat, who stuck a revolver in the lieutenant’s ribs while he stood in the entranceway in his nightclothes holding high a smoking oil lamp.
Upstairs the beplumed intruder walked into the bedroom of Brigadier General Edwin H. Stoughton and pulled down the covers. The brigadier was laying on his side, snoring, but he roused up stupidly, still somewhat intoxicated from his evening’s soiree, when Mosby lifted his nightshirt and slapped him on the behind announcing, “Get up General, and come with me!”
The sound of the voice brought Stoughton more fully awake and, when he realized the man bending over him was a stranger, he shouted, “What is this! Do you know who I am, sir?”
“I reckon I do, General. Did you ever hear of Mosby?”
“Yes, have you caught him?”
“No, but he has caught you.”
Hearing of this exploit, Lincoln commented, “Well, I’m sorry for that. I can make new brigadier generals, but I can’t make horses.”
Mosby had been expelled from the University of Virginia for shooting another student who had made “disagreeable remarks.” He was so impressed by his lawyer, who apparently kept him out of jail, that he borrowed his books and became a lawyer. After the war he became close friends with U.S. Grant, whom he supported for president in 1868, thereby losing many of his Confederate friends but launching a successful career, which included being envoy to Hong Kong for a while.
Since Mosby, widely known as “the Gray Ghost” because the Yankees could never catch him, died in 1916, you may reasonably wonder what he has to do with light blogging. Just this: his namesake, Mosby, an eight week old yellow Labrador Retriever puppy, joined our household a week ago, and he has been disrupting things around here, including my blogging, as much as the original Mosby ever did to the Union supply lines. (See accompanying photo of Mosby and Friend below. Click on it to see a larger version.)
The name seemed appropriate for many reasons, not least of which is that the original Mosby operated almost exclusively behind enemy lines and Charlottesville is so “blue” that I often feel I’m doing the same thing.
Mosby comes to us from our good friend and renowned Labrador breeder, Jane Kelso, owner of Mountain Run Kennel in Culpeper, Va. (One of his litter mates was just picked up by a nice lady who drove all the way here from Los Alamos, New Mexico, to get him.) Jane, who gives a whole new meaning to the term “Yellow Dog Democrat,” (but is a good person anyway) was also the source of our first yellow Lab, Mosby’s great aunt, who the then twelve year old Jessie named “Charlotte” so she could call our house Charlotte’s Villa. Charlotte died last spring, and we’ve just recovered enough to bring home another puppy.
A good friend, whom I can now describe as a Pulitzer Prize-winning friend, said I must not know that adults become free only after the kid(s) leave home and the dog dies. I must not, since our home without Charlotte proved to be almost as empty as our home after Jessie left, very early, for college, making my wife and me premature empty-nesters.
It’s not empty now. In fact, I can’t think of anyone or anything who takes up as much space as a Labrador puppy … and, like it or not, Labradors stay puppies longer than just about any other breed. (If you haven’t yet read Marley & Me, get to it.) First, like most puppies Labs are chewers, but in typical Lab fashion they tend to chew more, and longer. But don’t misunderstand: having all our furniture shortened really won’t make that big a difference in our lives, and he doesn’t chew everything — only the things he can reach, which most of the time does not include Mango the cat.
Still, despite all (or because of it), Mosby is a little yellow bundle of delight. He’s already learning to sit and heel, and he even retrieves from water. Most Labs are born knowing how to swim, and will take every opportunity to do so, but they don’t all start retrieving so early. If you have any doubts about his ability in this regard (including his ability to retrieve a used cigarette package), or would like to see some other pics from his first few days with us, feel free to take a look here.
Now as for the light blogging, I used to do most of it at Greenberry’s, a terrific local coffee house in Charlottesville with free WiFi, but I haven’t been able to spend much time there. So now I’m reduced to short spurts online in the short, rare intervals between trying to substitute acceptable chew toys for shoes, toes, or other household objects.
I did manage to make some notes toward an important post on something or other, but the dog ate them….
UPDATE [20 August]
I’ve added a few more pics to the site linked above. As you might be able to tell from a close comparison with the earlier ones, Mosby now seems almost twice as big as he was when he joined, and immediately took over, our household a little over two weeks ago. Indeed, I have visions of him crawling under our bed (he likes to sleep under things, as the pic below indicates) and growing so much during his nap that he can’t get out.
The chewing also continues apace. Below, however, he was captured in a rare moment of not chewing. He’s quite calm … when he’s asleep.
I mentioned above that our first Lab, Charlotte, died last spring. I did not mention, but should have, that Mosby is Charlotte’s great nephew and, it follows, the first cousin, once removed, of one of Charlotte’s puppies, Miles. Charlotte had only one litter, which was small, but Miles was selected to be a therapy dog (very, very few are called, and far fewer are chosen), and has drawn national press coverage for his theraputic feats (see here and here).
Our expectations for Mosby are considerably less. It will be more than sufficient if he continues to provide therapy for Helene and me, and if, at some date no doubt far off into the future, our furniture comes to need less therapy. Take a closer look at the above pic and you’ll see in the background one of the few relatively expensive pieces of furniture we have, the base of a fancy floor lamp from Artimede. Now look even closer (you may have to click to look at the bigger version for this) and you’ll see the lamp’s black electric cord. This photo is now dated. A current photo would show that cord bitten neatly in half. Apparently all of Mosby’s time under that chair was not spent sleeping. But at least the light was off when he attacked the cord, or we’d have had a fried Mosby….
Congratulations on getting Mosby. We have his brother from the same litter, Augie. We brought Augie home from Jane’s last Monday. He now lives with us in the community of Fawn Lake in Spotsylvania County. Augie too is already retrieving, not to mention chewing everything in sight. I’d love to hear more about Mosby as time goes on. If you have a non-blog email, I’ll send you pics of Augie.
A BIG bark out to Mosby, whom I hereby name an honorary federal dog. He is among stellar ranks indeed. ARF!