A Tuesday Morning Treasure Hunt...!

We haven't done a treasure story for a while, so I figured we would do so this morning! We all love a good story about buried treasure, right?

Mosby’s Treasure

John Singleton Mosby

In early March 1863, the Confederate ranger Colonel John Singleton Mosby and his band of guerrilla raiders surprised more than 40 Union troops at the Fairfax Courthouse and overcame them without firing a shot. From the lodgings of Union General Edwin Stoughton, Mosby reportedly took a burlap sack stuffed with more than $350,000 worth in gold, silver, jewelry, candlesticks and other family heirlooms, all of them taken from the homes of wealthy Virginia planters. While Mosby was transporting Stoughton and the other prisoners back to the Confederate line, his scouts warned him of a large detachment of Union soldiers nearby. In case of a battle, Mosby told his men to bury the sack of treasure between two large pine trees, which he marked with his knife. Mosby’s raiders avoided the clash and got back behind Confederate lines, but when he sent back seven of his men to retrieve the riches, they were caught and hanged as accused guerrillas. Mosby never returned to get the treasure, and never told anyone else its exact location—as far as we know, it remains buried in the woods of Fairfax County, Virginia, today.

There are many tales from the Civil War Era about lost or hidden gold or treasure. Some of them might actually have a grain of truth to them, ya recon?

Coffee inside this morning. Fresh baked bread with honey is available, OK?