Headquarters in the Brush: Blazer’s Independent Union Scouts

Contrary to accepted myths, guerrilla tactics in the Civil War were not confined to the army of the Confederacy. In the fall of 1863, Union Colonel Carr B. White formed a group of scouts, handpicked for their marksmanship, to fight the bushwackers in the mountains of West Virginia. The unit was so successful that Gen. George Crook mounted the group in 1864 to combat rebel guerillas, make deep raids, and act as the front and rear guard of the army, giving them the most dangerous of missions. In the Shenandoah Valley, General Philip Sheridan gave them the mandate to take on the renowned Confederate partisan, John S. Mosby and his rangers. Equipped with advanced Spencer repeating rifles, they took the war to Mosby’s Rangers as a regular cavalry could not do. Up till now the conflicts between Blazer’s Scouts and Mosby’s Rangers have only been told from the Confederate perspective. Headquarters in the Brush provides a corrective to the historical telling of these escapes. Heavily illustrated and using long-overlooked sources, this a balanced and fascinating account of what may be the most extraordinary group of men in the American Civil War.