Myer B. Moses enlisted in Company D, 2nd South Carolina Infantry, on April 9, 1861, the day after his brother Henry Claremont Moses joined up. Known in the family for his Civil War heroics, Myer Moses served under Camden lawyer Colonel Joseph B. Kershaw. During the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1864, Moses and Captain William C. Vance were retreating from a skirmish when they encountered a Federal detachment. According to Mac Wyckoff’s history of the infantry:

“The keen-witted Moses pretended he was a Yankee and demanded their surrender. Told that they were Federals, Moses acted overjoyed and urged them to ‘catch those d--n rebels.’ But when asked to what unit he belonged, he gave himself away, and was taken prisoner. Meanwhile, Vance had slipped off the horse and into the darkness.”