Page 157 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Fall 2017

command.” Maybe more legend and lore than fact, but similar than surrender his Rangers to the Union before the end of the
parallels are seen in today’s high-performing and disciplined truce.
Special Operations units . . . ultimate punishment for violation
of discipline is return to conventional units. In the final chapter, almost an afterword for war veterans,
Monteiro uses his space and words to highlight the cruelty
A turning point in the book, and indeed the war, as described and unjust treatment of veteran Confederate soldiers captured
by Monteiro was when Mosby’s Rangers, who were deep be- during the war, especially Mosby’s Rangers. Monteiro appears
hind Union lines in northern Virginia, received reports that to write to future readers, 130 years later, emphasizing that the
Union forces captured the Confederate capital, Richmond, “clear and unbiased lens of history” will make clear the north-
VA, and that General Lee had surrendered to General Grant ern cruelty toward southern prisoners. Monteiro narrates ac-
at Appomattox, VA. Initially, the Mosby’s Rangers did not counts of captured Rangers being marched and humiliated by
believe such reports. Monteiro describes use of psychological local citizens through the streets of Boston, of being shot for
and information operations in the Civil War, common Special the slightest infraction of prison rules, and systematic starva-
Operations tactics that are still used by modern Special Opera- tion. In full disclosure, Monteiro does state that the South was
tions Forces. not merciful to Union prisoners either. However, in total the
South paid a higher public health price than the North. In the
Union forces would use psychological and information opera- South, Union commanders would slash and burn any ability
tions to lie to, deceive, and persuade Confederate forces that for citizens of the South to raise and grow crops, and the Con-
the Confederacy was a lost cause. Union newspaper articles federacy placed a large tax on its citizens to supply the war
sometimes printed false artist sketches and portrayed Confed- effort. In the end, the defeated South could not release Union
erate soldiers as barbaric soldiers who mutilated dead Union prisoners quick enough, let alone keep them to feed them. In
corpses, including an initial charge that Colonel Mosby assas- the North, southern prisoners continued to languish as ar-
sinated President Lincoln. rangements for parole, pardon, and transportation back home
took many months.
Monteiro was part of a delegation from Mosby’s Rangers that
attempted to negotiate a surrender to Union forces. He carried War Reminiscences by the Surgeon of Mosby’s Command, by
a handkerchief tied to a stick as a symbol of truce through Aristides Monteiro, originally written in 1888 and republished
Union picket lines. Terms of a surrender could not be reached. 127 years later in London, England, by Forgotten Books, 2015,
Union commanders did not extend the terms of surrender ne- is the first-person account of the Mosby’s Rangers command
gotiated for Lee’s Army of northern Virginia to Mosby’s gue- surgeon. There are many parallels between Monteiro experi-
rilla force of partisan Rangers. During the surrender negation ences as a partisan guerilla force surgeon and the medics, medi-
attempts, Monteiro is introduced to a Union surgeon. Mon- cal leaders, and surgeons in today’s Special Operations Forces.
teiro mistakenly assumes the Union surgeon would be inter- Colonel Mosby, a highly talented leader of a Confederate parti-
ested in helping relieve the suffering of the sick and wounded; san guerilla force in northern Virginia, incorporated all six ele-
however, the Union surgeon is only interested in finding his ments of Admiral McRaven’s elements of Special Operations:
horses that were captured in a raid by Colonel Mosby. Surren- purpose, simplicity, speed, security, repetition, and surprise,
der terms could not be reached. Mosby decides that instead of causing the Union to divert thousands of troops from the front
surrendering his men to an unknown fate, he disbands, rather battle-lines to pursue Mosby’s Rangers.

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