I'm John Batser, sitting with my friend and colleague Patrick C. O'Donnell, the author of The Unvanquished.

This is the story of Lincoln Special Forces and Mosby's Rangers, that special forces for the Confederacy,

the Civil War, the Shadow War that forged America's special operations,

were focusing on the night of April 14th and the events in and around Washington from

the 14th of April, 1865 to boost death on the 26th of April, and then the trial in May of 1865 of the conspirators.

John Singleton Mosby, what was his mission? How did he conceive himself in his Rangers, Patrick?

John Singleton Mosby is one of the great pioneers of American special operations in regular warfare.

Beginning with only a handful of men, it emerges as nearly a thousand strong, but they tie up tens of thousands of Union troops with various raids in and around,

Prince William County, Loudoun County, and Fairfax County.

They're in their, they're unstoppable in most cases.

There's no force that's going up against them until the Union Scouts in my book, the Jesse Scouts, Lincoln Special Forces,

one element of that, Blazers Independent Scouts,

is specifically a counterinsurgency element that is a Manhunter team,

one of the first in U.S. Army history that tracks Mosby.

But what happens is they successfully destroy two of Mosby's companies.

But in November 18, 1864 in Myers Town, Virginia, Blazers' independent scouts nearly wiped out.

But my main character, Richard Blazer, is captured by several Rangers, including Lewis Powell. And what's interesting is Powell brings Blazer into captivity, along with other scouts,

to Libby Prison. But it's in Richmond that Powell meets with the Confederate Secret Service.

And they formalize more of the plan to kidnap the president.

Louis Powell then returns to Mosby's Confederacy in the Warrington area

and doesn't really participate in any missions at all.

And what we find is in the record, it was more or less an open secret with many of the men

...