The New York Tribune – May 2nd, 1865 MOSBY The Star says: “Mosby was at Salem, near Warrenton last Friday, and is still harbored in the neighborhood by the Rebel inhabitants. His command has deserted him entirely, 400 having arrived at Winchester, paroled. Some of them offer to bring in Mosby for $5,000.”
John Mosby gave permission after his battalion was offered the same parole as was offered to the Army of Northern Virginia (except for himself, that is) for any of his men to go in for parole. None did. It wasn't until he sent them away after disbanding that his men went in for parole and a few hardy souls stayed with Mosby as he went South to Richmond to see if Joe Johnston was still in the field. When he discovered that Johnston had surrendered and that the war was well and truly over, he sent the few remaining Rangers to seek parole while he went into a two month period of outlawry.
The claim was made from the beginning that Mosby's own men were seeking him for the reward and that they had told Grant that $2,000 wasn't enough to make such a dangerous undertaking worthwhile; it would take too many of them to do it and the return when the reward was distributed among the hunters would not be worth the chance of getting killed. Mosby did not intend to surrender; he would kill to prevent capture and they knew it. Grant put an additional $3,000 into the reward and in June, Halleck added a further $5,000 when Mosby had still not surrendered or been caught or killed. That meant that the reward for Mosby reached a rather incredible $10,000! Remember, at that time, Mosby had no "gang", had made no further depredations upon the Yankees, stolen nothing and caused no trouble other than refusing to surrender and become a prisoner of the Union. Yet, the Yankees still thought his capture or death worth $10,000!! The reward for both Booth and Herold - the assassin of Lincoln and his nearest associate - was only $50,000 or $25,000 each. Mosby, who had assassinated nobody and apparently was not being charged with involvement in Lincoln's death, was priced at 1/5th the amount of the two leading persons involved in the assassination! That's got to be unique in American historical annals.
