Dear Terry I know that after General George Custer executed several of Mosby's men as guerillas back in Virginia Lee ordered that a like number of Yankee POWs be selected at random and hung as a warning to halt these executions.

Well the men were selected and as they were being led to their doom a Federal gave the Masonic distress signal and the officer in charge of the detail pulled him from the ranks of the condemned men and substituted another POW in his place. This infuriated Lee when he learned of it. VR, Scott Price