Rival Bonds

Whatever else may be said of Thomas Lafayette Rosser, it cannot be assumed he lived a dull, uninteresting life. After all, if there is a list of Confederate officers who have streets named for them in Mani-toba and North Dakota, it must be a short one. Compelled to leave the U.S. Military Academy only a few weeks before graduation due to his home state’s secession, it did not take long for the Confederacy to find use for Rosser’s talents. After spending the first year of the war with the Washington Artillery, Rosser transferred to the cavalry and it was as a leader of mounted forces that he made his most notable contributions to the Confederate war effort. As commander of the 5th Virginia Cavalry and then the “Laurel Brigade,” he saw service in nearly all of the major operations conducted by the Army of Northern Virginia from Second Manassas to Petersburg.

Following participation in the “Beefsteak Raid” of September 1864, Rosser was sent to the Shenandoah Valley. Hailed on his arrival as the “Savior of the Valley,” Rosser was badly defeated at Tom’s Brook, with his close friend George A.