in
Washington, D.C., in August 2008 When the Civil War ended, Mosby was just 31, and would live another five decades. He resumed his law practice in
Warrenton, and by December 1865 was prosecuting the internal revenue collector in
Prince William County for mule-stealing. Nonetheless, during the year after receiving his parole, Mosby often found himself harassed by occupying Union forces, arrested on petty or trumped-up charges, until his wife and young son Revardy, after being rebuffed by President
Andrew Johnson despite their mutual kinship ties, met General Grant in January 1866 and secured a handwritten exemption from arrest and guarantee of safe conduct.
Virginia politics On May 8, 1872, as covered by the
Washington Star, Mosby personally thanked then-
U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant for that document. Mosby also told Grant he believed vehemently that election of
Horace Greeley (a long-time editor of the
New York Tribune detested in the South) would be worse for the South because the men surrounding him were worse than those surrounding his old benefactor Grant. A few days later, Massachusetts Congressman
Benjamin Butler presented an amnesty bill for former Confederates, as Mosby had suggested in that meeting, and soon President Grant signed it into law. After Greeley became the Democratic party's nominee in July, Mosby became Grant's campaign manager in Virginia, and an active
Republican, although he also made sure the Republicans would not run a candidate against his friend and fellow Warrenton attorney
Eppa Hunton, who campaigned and won as a Democrat. In his autobiography Grant stated, "Since the close of the war, I have come to know Colonel Mosby personally and somewhat intimately. He is a different man entirely from what I supposed. ... He is able and thoroughly honest and truthful." Soon, Mosby had become one of Grant's favorites and was bringing federal patronage jobs to local Virginians, although initially he did not hold any federal job. He tried to make a rapprochement between President Grant and Virginia Governor
James L. Kemper, a Confederate Major General and Conservative elected the following year and whom Mosby also supported. However, that failed. His Republican political activity diminished Mosby's popularity in Warrenton; many considered him a turncoat. Many Southerners still considered Grant "the enemy". Mosby received death threats, his boyhood home was burned down, and at least one attempt was made to assassinate him. Later reflecting on the animosity shown to him by his fellow Virginians, Mosby stated in a May 1907 letter that "There was more vindictiveness shown to me by the Virginia people for my voting for Grant than the North showed to me for fighting four years against him." After the deaths of his wife Pauline and infant son Alfred in mid-1876, Mosby decided to move his family to Washington, D.C., but had difficulty finding enough legal business to support them. He thus spent much time campaigning for the Republican candidate,
Rutherford B. Hayes. Scandals had rocked the Grant Administration as it ended, but Hayes became the next President, and Mosby hoped for a patronage appointment. He also courted powerful Ohio Congressman
James Garfield, telling him his desire for a government position, preferably in the Justice Department. He was instead offered a position as trade representative to Canton, but ultimately was confirmed by the Senate as United States
consul to
Hong Kong (a position he held from 1878 to 1885). Mosby had to leave his children in the care of relatives, but this proved to be the first in a series of other federal government jobs and postings, many fighting rampant fraud in politically volatile situations. President McKinley appointed Mosby's daughter May the postmistress in Warrenton, which became very important after her husband Robert Campbell died in August 1889, leaving her to raise her young children alone (although her sons John Mosby Campbell and Alexander Spottswood Campbell received many letters and some money from their overseas grandfather, as to a lesser extent did Jack Russell, son of his late sister Lucie).
Consul in Hong Kong Upon arriving in Hong Kong, Mosby found discrepancies in his predecessor's recordkeeping, and believed
David H. Bailey had colluded with his vice-consul Loring (whom Mosby fired), to bilk the government of thousands of dollars in fees. Bailey had pocketed fees charged Chinese emigrants sailing to the U.S. on foreign-flag ships (certifying that they emigrated voluntarily and were not part of notorious "coolie traffic"), and claimed "expenses" for shipboard examinations (by the illiterate proprietor of a local boardinghouse frequented by sailors) of those emigrating on U.S.-flag ships equal to the fees charged. Mosby thought Bailey had almost doubled his salary over the previous eight years by embezzlement and kickbacks, and stopped charging for shipboard examinations (which he personally conducted). However, Bailey had recently been nominated to become consul at Shanghai because
George Seward, previous consul since 1863, had been nominated to become the ambassador to China. Seward's replacement in Shanghai, John C. Myers of Reading, Pennsylvania, had reported to State Department superiors that George Seward and his vice-consul Oliver Bradford had been engaging in land and capital speculation in China that seemed to violate the Burlingame Treaty of 1868, but had been suspended, as had his successor
Wiley Wells, ex-Congressman from Mississippi. Wells and Myers then sought redress from Congress, which was considering impeaching George Seward, but Bailey traveled to Washington to defend his crony. Mosby's initial letter to his superior (
Frederick W. Seward, son of the former secretary of state and who had been wounded by Mosby's ex-subordinate while defending his father from an assassination attempt on the night of President Lincoln's assassination) languished. However, Special Treasury Department Inspector DeB. Randolph Keim made a whirlwind inspection of Far East consulates and found many similar bookkeeping irregularities. Eventually, in March 1879, Mosby wrote to General
Thomas C. H. Smith, a friend of President Hayes, about a similar embezzlement scheme operated by David B. Sickels (U.S. Consul at Bangkok) and his vice-consul Torrey (a Hong Kong native whose correspondence to the fired Loring Mosby accepted and read). Mosby also learned that Bailey had charged (and pocketed) $10,000 per year for shipments of opium to the United States from Macao, although Mosby proposed to issue the required certificate for the legal export for just $2.50. Meanwhile, consul Mosby was occupied entertaining his old friend President Grant, who spent the two years after his retirement touring the world as a semi-private citizen. Mosby received Grant on April 30. During the nearly week-long visit, Grant told Mosby he had heard more reports about the problems in Bangkok and advised Mosby to go directly to President Hayes (as Mosby had just done) and promised to talk to Hayes personally. However, Bailey was confirmed as consul in Shanghai before Grant's return home, and newspapers had begun publishing stories about Mosby's inappropriate attire, the start of a campaign to minimize him as a "crackpot." Moreover, the new State Department investigator was General
Julius Stahel, who had fought Mosby in Virginia and had been consul at
Hyogo, Japan. Nonetheless, Stahel verified Mosby's complaints, and former Union Cavalry Major
William H. Forbes (who had once stabbed Col. Mosby's coat during an engagement) who now headed Russell and Co. (major traders in the Far East, including of opium) also supported Mosby against Bailey, Seward and their newspaper friends.
Alexander McClure of the
Philadelphia Times agitated to clean up the consular service. Fred Seward, amidst charges that he was shielding the rascals, resigned by October 1879, and was replaced by
John Hay. By January 1880, Grant and journalist
John R. Young (who would become consul at Shanghai two years later) briefed Secretary of State
William M. Evarts about Sickels and Torrey. George Seward resigned well before the 1880 election, followed by Bailey and Sickels as the President "at last swept the China coast". Nonetheless, Mosby was unhappy, despite the electoral victory of his friend Garfield in November and his son Beverley joining him as vice-consul. His repeated requests for leave to return home and visit the rest of his family kept being denied, as were most requests for supplies or funds, and one relative was removed from the Lighthouse Board. In addition to the press and bureaucratic sniping, Mosby found his salary insufficient to support socialization among the local merchant class. Still, as 1880 began, Mosby won a slander lawsuit brought against him in Hong Kong by Peter Smith, the sailors' boardinghouse keeper associated with ex-consul Bailey, reporting that he defended himself to the applause of jury and spectators, as well as laughter of the distinguished judge. By the time Mosby received notice that his U.S. leave had been approved, President Garfield had been shot and was hanging on to life.
Garfield died on September 20, and President
Chester Arthur considered promoting Mosby to the similar post at Shanghai (with higher living expenses), but Mosby wanted to either return home or remain in Hong Kong. Thus he remained in exile and dealt with the implications of the
Chinese Exclusion Act, the growing opium trade and the brewing war between France and China. Mosby left China after the election of Democrat
Grover Cleveland led to a change in administrations. He was replaced by fellow Virginian
Robert E. Withers, whom Mosby had long despised.
Railroad lawyer Before leaving China, Mosby had written Grant seeking help in finding another position. Grant responded (as he was dying) with a letter recommending Mosby to Senator
Leland Stanford, a former California railroad magnate. Mosby then spent about 16 years in California, working as a lawyer for the
Southern Pacific Railroad until the death of his mentor
Collis Huntington. Much of what he did remains unknown, due to a fire which destroyed the company's records of that era. Although Mosby hated the desk work, he twice returned to Washington, D.C., to argue before the United States Supreme Court—once based on the consul fees he had remitted to the Treasury (and which the claims court found him entitled to) and once for the railroad. Mosby also wrote articles for Eastern newspapers about his escapades during the Civil War, and traveled to New England on a speaking tour where he met
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. & Sr. (father and son). He also befriended the Patton family and spent time at their ranch with their young son,
George S. Patton, recreating Civil War battles, with Mosby playing himself and George playing Robert E. Lee. In 1898, Mosby tried to secure an officer's commission, for the
Spanish–American War, but was blocked by
Secretary of War Russell A. Alger (see:
Russell A. Alger § Vendetta against John S. Mosby). Mosby trained an
Oakland, California cavalry troop, dubbed
Mosby’s Hussars, but the War ended, and they never left for Cuba or the Philippines.
Government attorney When Mosby returned to Washington in 1901, during the second term of the McKinley administration (wary during the first term because of McKinley's service in the
Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War, as well as being perceived as just another office-seeker), he again sought a job in the Justice Department. After McKinley's assassination, President Theodore Roosevelt instead sent Mosby west as a special agent of the
Department of the Interior. There, Mosby dealt with illegal fencing of range land by cattle barons in Colorado and Nebraska, who often used fake homestead claims by military widows as well as violated the Van Wyck Fence Law of 1885. When witnesses refused to come forward to testify about illegal fencing for fear of retaliation, Mosby upheld the law by first sending notices to the affected landowner. The Pawnee Cattle Company capitulated in Colorado, so Mosby moved on to western Nebraska, where he learned the land agent actually lived in Iowa and failed to supervise the range. Mosby's Colorado methods failed, however, since the Omaha grand jury refused to authorize an indictment against
Bartlett Richards or anyone but nonresident agent W.R. Lesser. Mosby was recalled to Washington to appease Nebraska's Senators, and then sent to halt timber trespassers in Alabama forests. However, other attorneys were sent out, who secured indictments. Richards and his English brother in law William G. Comstock were convicted in 1905 despite their argument that the government land hadn't been surveyed. The local judge sentenced them to $300 fine apiece and six hours in custody, which they spent celebrating at the
Omaha Cattlemen's Club, and which led President Roosevelt to fire both the U.S. attorney and U.S. Marshal. The next year Richards and Comstock were indicted on a new charge of conspiracy to deprive the government of public land, convicted and fined $1,500 fines as well as sentenced to a year in jail. After three years of appeals, the convictions and sentences were upheld, so they were sent to prison in
Hastings, Nebraska for a year beginning in 1901, and Richards died in a hospital a month before the sentence would end. Mosby finally got the
Department of Justice post he wanted as
Philander Knox ended his term as attorney general. It was not with the trust-busting unit, however, but with the Bureau of Insular and Territorial affairs, where Mosby worked (at a low salary of $2,400/year) under his brother-in-law
Charles W. Russell Jr. from 1904 to 1910. In 1905 President Roosevelt again sent him to Alabama to troubleshoot allegations of irregularities at the Port of Mobile. Next, he was sent to Oklahoma to investigate charges against U.S. Marshal (and former Rough Rider) Benjamin Colbert. He also secured an indictment of
McAlester attorneys George Mansfield, John F. McMurray and Melvin Cornish for misappropriation of Indian Trust funds, but his superior Russell thought the evidence insufficient and ultimately dropped the charges two years later. Meanwhile, Mosby went back to investigate charges of land frauds against Indian minors, and on his return found little to do. ==Memoirist of the Civil War==