How Did The Grey Ghosts Get Their Name?

Recently we got a question from a reader asking how the Westford Academy Grey Ghosts became, well, the Grey Ghosts… Have no fear (even of Ghosts), we’ve got an answer for you.

The original Grey Ghost was Colonel John Mosby, a Confederate officer who led a partisan cavalry unit known as Mosby’s Rangers during the Civil War.

Mosby was fiercely loyal to Virginia, but also disliked slavery, becoming involved in politics after the war, eventually becoming the U.S. Ambassador to Hong Kong in the Ulysses S. Grant administration.

His exploits were turned into a television show in the late 1950s that was apparently popular with Westford Academy students of the time, who chose Mosby’s nickname as the replacement nickname during a contest to replace the school’s former one: the Black Knights.