John S. Mosby

You had secret meetings, conspiracies, plots.

Well, this guy, Paul openly worked with a guy named Colonel John Mosby.

Mosby actually led a group of guerrillas in Maryland.

They were called Mosby's Rangers.

But what makes this all the more delightfully absurd is that while men were building card kingdoms, just a few miles away, a legendary Confederate cavalry leader was pulling off a caper that reads like a heist movie.

Confederate cavalry leader John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost, once snuck into a Union camp and stole a general's horse, leaving a note.

John Singleton Mosby earned his nickname, the Gray Ghost, not because he was ethereal or poetic, but because he had an uncanny knack for slipping through Union lines like a specter.

Picture this: a moonlit night, an enemy camp supposedly secure, and in strolls Mosby, not with guns blazing, but with the subtlety of a cat burglar.

His target? A general's prized horse.

In what sounds more like a prank pulled by a mischievous teenager than a military maneuver, Mosby didn't just make off with the horse.

He left behind a cheeky note.

It's as if he said, "Thanks for the hospitality, but I'm taking this guy for a spin." This wasn't mere thievery.

He was tutored from home until the age of 11, when he was enrolled in Stephen Cutter Clark's Classical School for Boys, a private school in Pasadena for six years.

He was described as a very intelligent boy, and he was widely read in classical military history, particularly the exploits of Hannibal, Scipio Africanus, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, and Napoleon Bonaparte, as well as those of Confederate cavalry commander John Singleton Mosby, a family friend who frequently stopped by the Patton home when George was a child.

And I should point out John Singleton Mosby was known as a brilliant military tactician for the Confederacy, and that George Patton was a kindred spirit to the Confederate cause and the South, as their family had sort of a lineage in the South.

He was also a very, very devoted horseback rider.

What's going on in our live interactive chat room? Kendo's here.

Stanley used a different name so Ruth couldn't find him.

Jimmy says Stanley signed in as John Mosby.

That detail is pretty revealing.

John Mosby was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War.

He was so good at evading Northern troops that he earned the nickname the Gray Ghost.

So Stanley used Mosby's name to ghost his wife.