Read Ebook: Camp Venture: A Story of the Virginia Mountains by Eggleston George Cary McCullough W A William A Illustrator

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Opening of Hostilities. Volunteering to serve the Confederacy. Virginia Brimfull of Patriotism. J. E. B. Stuart showing Qualities of a Great Leader of Cavalry 5

Experiences in the Confederate Cavalry. Adventures on the Picket Line. Capture of a Federal Wagon Train 14

Christmastide Raids. Why Union Cavalrymen once left their Turkeys. Cripples who harassed the Federal Camp by Night. Ben Hatton's Experience as an Unwilling Guide 27

Harassing the Army of the Potomac. Exciting Raid in Northern Virginia. The Bucktail Plan to capture Mosby's Command 39

How Major Gilmer tried to capture Mosby's Command. Scared Vermonters hide in a Miller's Wheat Bins. Sorrow changed to Happiness at Middleburg, Va. 50

Sergeant Ames, of the Fifth New York Cavalry, deserts and joins Mosby. Old Dr. Drake's Saddle-Bags. Capture of a Federal Picket at Herndon Station. The Dash and Excitement of a Cavalry Skirmish. A Shot in the Dark 62

Sudden Attacks upon Federal Cavalry Outposts. A Confederate Blacksmith's Achievements in Arms. A Running Fight How a Repulse was Turned into a Victory. The Sabre as a Weapon for Cavalrymen 78

The Influence of Martinets and Red Tape on the Confederate Service. A Hand to Hand Fight with Vermont Cavalry. A Close Call. The Remorseless Revolver. Impending Defeat turned into Triumph. The Ludicrous 98

In Pursuit. Elaborate Plans made to capture "Mosby." How a Union Major-General deceived himself. A Chase that failed to accomplish its Object. Why a Raid on a Railroad was temporarily postponed 115

In the Saddle. What saved Hooker's Supplies at Chancellorsville. Cavalry Skirmishes. Raids against Wagon Trains and Railroad Guards 129

Raid through the Lines of the Union Army. A Wrecked Train. Brave Spirits who fell by the Little Howitzer 142

On the Road to Gettysburg. Raid over the Potomac River into Maryland. Narrow Escape from Capture. Marches at Night in the Union Columns 154

Gen. Stuart's Raid around the Rear of Hooker's Army. Gen. Longstreet, in the Century Magazine, condemns Stuart's "Wild Ride around the Federal Army." Letter from Gen. Longstreet to Gen. Lee, suggesting Stuart's "Wild Ride around the Federal Army." Stuart acting under Orders 178

Stuart's Cavalry. Descriptive of Stuart's Raid around McClellan's Army 205

MOSBY'S WAR REMINISCENCES.

In April, 1861, I was attending court at Abingdon, Va., when I met a person who had just stepped out of the telegraph office, who informed me that tremendous tidings were passing over the wires. Going in, I inquired of the operator what it was, who told me that Lincoln had issued a proclamation calling out troops. Fort Sumter had fallen two days before. The public mind was already strained to a high pitch of excitement, and it required only a spark to produce an explosion. The indignation aroused by the President's proclamation spread like fire on a prairie, and the laws became silent in the midst of arms. People of every age, sex, and condition were borne away on the tide of excited feeling that swept over the land.

The home of Gov. John B. Floyd, who had resigned as secretary of war under Buchanan, was at Abingdon. I went to his house and told him the news. He immediately issued a call to arms, which resounded like the roll of Ziska's drum among the mountains of southwestern Virginia. Many of the most influential families in that region were descendants of the men who had fought under Morgan and Campbell at Eutaw Springs and King's Mountain. Their military spirit was inflamed by stirring appeals to the memories of the deeds their sires had done. Women, too, came forward to inspire men with a spirit of heroic self-sacrifice, and a devotion that rivalled the maidens of Carthage and Saragossa.

All the pride and affection that Virginians had felt in the traditions of the government which their ancestors had made, and the great inheritance which they had bequeathed, were lost in the overpowering sentiment of sympathy with the people who were threatened with invasion. It is a mistake to suppose that the Virginia people went to war in obedience to any decree of their State, commanding them to go. On the contrary, the people were in a state of armed revolution before the State had acted in its corporate capacity. I went along with the flood like everybody else. A few individuals here and there attempted to breast the storm of passion, and appeared like Virgil's ship-wrecked mariners, "Rari nantes in surgite vasto." Their fate did not encourage others to follow their example, and all that they did was to serve "like ocean wrecks to illuminate the storm." In anticipation of these events, a cavalry company had for some months been in process of organization, which I had joined as a private. This company--known as the Washington Mounted Rifles--was immediately called together by its commanding officer, Capt. William E. Jones. Capt. Jones was a graduate of West Point, and had resigned some years before from the United States army. He was a stern disciplinarian, and devoted to duty. Under a rugged manner and impracticable temper he had a heart that beat with warm impulses. To his inferiors in rank he was just and kind, but too much inclined to cross the wishes and criticise the orders of his superiors. He had been a classmate of Stonewall Jackson at the military academy, and related to me many anecdotes of Jackson's piety, as well as his eccentricities. He was a hard swearer; and a few days after the battle of Bull Run he told me that he was at Jackson's headquarters, and Jackson got very much provoked at something a soldier had done, when Jones said, "Jackson, let me cuss him for you." He fell in battle with Gen. Hunter, in the valley of Virginia, in June, 1864. We went into barracks at Abingdon, and began drilling.

No service I ever had to perform during the war went as much against the grain as standing guard the first night I was in camp. I had no friends in the cavalry company, so I applied to Gov. Litchen for a transfer to an infantry company that had been raised in that part of the county where I resided. But on the very day I made the application, a telegraphic order came for us to start for Richmond immediately, and I never heard anything more of it. My company marched on horseback all the way to Richmond--about five hundred miles--while the infantry company went by rail. But how small is the control that mortals have over their own destinies. The company to which I unsuccessfully applied to be transferred became a part of the immortal division of Stonewall Jackson, in which I would have had only a slight chance of asserting my individuality, which would have been merged in the mass. I remember distinctly, now, how with a heart almost bursting with grief, in the midst of a rain, I bade my friends in the infantry company farewell just as they were about getting on the train. I had no dream then that I would ever be anything more than a private soldier. On the same day in rain and mud we started on the march to Richmond. A few days before a flag had been presented to our company by a young lady, with an address in which she reminded us that "the coward dies a thousand deaths--the brave man dies but one." I am sure there was not a man among us who did not feel the ambition of the youth in Longfellow's poem, bearing

Onward amid the ice and snow of Alpine heights His banner with its strange device.

He who has good buttermilk a plenty, and gives the soldiers none, He shan't have any of our buttermilk when his buttermilk is gone.

The buttermilk, as well as everything else that the farmer had that was good, was generally given to the soldiers. The country was brimful of patriotism.

The gayety with which men marched into the face of death is not so remarkable as the fortitude and cheerfulness of the wives and mothers who stayed at home and waited for the news of the battles. In nearly every home of the South could be found an example of that Spartan mother who sent her son to the wars with her last injunction to return with his shield or return upon it. This courage, exhibited in the beginning, survived to the last, through all the long agony and bloody sweat of the struggle. On reaching Richmond, after a few days' rest, we were ordered to the Shenandoah valley. A day or so before we started, Capt. Jones made a requisition on the quartermaster's department for clothing for his company. We were furnished with suits of a very rough quality of goods manufactured in the Virginia penitentiary. It almost produced a mutiny in the camp. The men piled the clothes up in front of the captain's tent. Only two refused to wear them--Private Fountain Beattie and myself. I do not think any clothes I ever wore did me more service than these. When I became a commander I made Beattie a lieutenant. I think we were both as contented on the picket line, dressed in our penitentiary suits, as we ever were in the gay uniforms we afterwards wore. Our march from Richmond to the Shenandoah valley was an ovation--our people had had no experiences of the misery and desolation that follow in the track of war; they were full of its romance, and expected us to win battles that would rival the glories of Wagram and Marengo. They never counted the cost of victory.

Our company was incorporated into the 1st regiment of Virginia cavalry, commanded by Col. J. E. B. Stuart. It was stationed at a village called Bunker Hill, on the turnpike leading from Winchester to Martinsburg, and was observing the Union army under Patterson, which was then stationed at the latter place, on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston then had his headquarters at Winchester. I first saw Stuart at Bunker Hill. He had then lately resigned from the United States army to link his fortunes with the Southern Confederacy. He was just twenty-eight years of age--one year older than myself--strongly built, with blue eyes, ruddy complexion, and a reddish beard. He wore a blouse and foraging cap with a linen cover, called a havelock, as a protection against the sun. His personal appearance indicated the distinguishing traits of his character--dash, great strength of will, and indomitable energy. Stuart soon showed that he possessed all the qualities of a great leader of cavalry--a sound judgment, a quick intelligence to penetrate the designs of an enemy, mingled with the brilliant courage of Rupert.

There was then such a wide chasm between me and him that I was only permitted to view him at a distance, and had no thought of ever rising to intimacy with him. He took us the next day on a scout down toward Martinsburg and gave us our first lesson in war and sight of the enemy. We saw the hills around the town covered with the white tents of the Union army, and caught two soldiers who had ventured too far outside the picket lines. Since then I have witnessed the capture of thousands, but have never felt the same joy as I did over these first two prisoners.

A few days after this, Patterson started out on a promenade toward Winchester, and then turned squarely off, and went back toward Charlestown. Patterson made a good deal of noise with the shells that he threw at us, but nobody was hurt. Stuart kept close on his flanks, both to watch his movements and to screen Johnston's, who had just begun to move to join Beauregard at Manassas. Fitz John Porter and George H. Thomas, who afterward became distinguished generals, were on his staff. Patterson has been greatly censured for not pressing Johnston, and detaining him in the Shenandoah valley, instead of making the retrograde movement to Charlestown that permitted his escape. He alleges that he acted under the advice of his staff officers. Patterson was a conspicuous figure as well as failure in the first scene of the first act of the drama of war; after that he disappeared forever. His campaign in the Shenandoah valley was a mere prologue to the great tragedy that was afterward acted there. Stuart left him in a position where he could neither be of advantage to the cause he upheld nor injury to that he opposed, and crossed the Blue Ridge to take part in the battle of Bull Run, on the 21st of July.

"O! shadow of glory--dim image of war-- The chase hath no story--her hero no star."

After the first battle of Bull Run, Stuart's cavalry was engaged in performing outpost duty on our front, which extended from the falls above Washington to Occoquan, on the lower Potomac. There were no opportunities for adventurous enterprise. McClellan's army was almost in a state of siege in Washington, and his cavalry but rarely showed themselves outside his infantry picket line. We had to go on picket duty three times a week and remain twenty-four hours. The work was pretty hard; but still, soldiers liked it better than the irksome life of the camp. I have often sat alone on my horse from midnight to daybreak, keeping watch over the sleeping army. During this period of inaction, the stereotyped message sent every night from Washington to the northern press was, "All quiet along the Potomac."

While I was a private in Stuart's cavalry, I never missed but one tour of outpost duty, and then I was confined in the hospital from an injury. With one other, I was stationed at the post on the road leading from Fall's Church to Lewinsville, in Fairfax. At night we relieved each other alternately, one sleeping while the other watched. About dusk, Capt. Jones had ridden to the post and instructed us that we had no troops outside our lines on that road, and that we must fire, without halting, on any body of men approaching from that direction, as they would be the enemy. The night was dark, and it had come my turn to sleep. I was lying on the ground, with the soft side of a stone for a pillow, when I was suddenly aroused by my companion, who called to me to mount, that the Yankees were coming. In an almost unconscious state I leaped into my saddle, and at the same instant threw forward my carbine, and both of us fired on a body of cavalry not fifty yards distant. Fortunately, we fired so low our bullets struck the ground just in front of them. The flash from my carbine in my horse's face frightened him terribly. He wheeled, and that is the last I remember about that night. The next thing I recollect is that some time during the next day I became conscious, and found myself lying on a bed at the house of the keeper of the toll-gate. Capt. Jones and several of the men of my company were standing by me. It appears that the night before Stuart had sent a company of cavalry to Lewinsville for some purpose. This company had gone out by one road and returned on the one where I had been posted. My horse had run away and fallen over a cow that was lying down, and rolled over me. The company of cavalry coming along the same way, their horses in front started and snorted at something lying in the road. They halted, some of them dismounted to see what it was, and discovered me there in an insensible state. They picked me up and carried me into the village, apparently dying. I was bruised from head to foot, and felt like every bone in my body had been broken. I had to be carried to Fairbay Court House in an ambulance. There is a tradition that when Capt. Jones looked on me that night he swore harder than the army in Flanders. The feelings he expressed for the officer in fault were not so benevolent as my Uncle Toby's for the fly.

While the cavalry did not have an opportunity to do much fighting during the first year of the war, they learned to perform the duties and endure the privations of a soldier's life. My experience in this school was of great advantage to me in the after years when I became a commander. There was a thirst for adventure among the men in the cavalry, and a positive pleasure to get an occasional shot "from a rifleman hid in a thicket." There were often false alarms, and sometimes real ones, from scouting parties of infantry who would come up at night to surprise our pickets. A vivid imagination united with a nervous temperament can see in the dark the shapes of many things that have no real existence. A rabbit making its nocturnal rounds, a cow grazing, a hog rooting for acorns, an owl hooting, or the screech of a night hawk could often arouse and sometimes stampede an outpost or draw the fire of a whole line of pickets. At the first shot, the reserve would mount; and soon the videttes would come running in at full speed. There was an old gray horse roaming about the fields at Fairfax Court House during the first winter of the war that must have been fired at a hundred times at night by our videttes, and yet was never touched. I have never heard whether Congress has voted him a pension. The last time that I was ever on picket was in February, 1862. The snow was deep and hard frozen. My post was on the outskirts of Fairfax Court House, at the junction of the Washington road and turnpike. I wore a woollen hood to keep my ears from freezing, and a blanket thrown around me as a protection against the cold wind. The night was clear, and all that's best of dark and bright. I sat on my horse under the shadow of a tree, both as a protection from the piercing blast and as a screen from the sight of an enemy. I had gone on duty at midnight, to remain until daybreak. The deep silence was occasionally broken by the cry of "Halt!" from some distant sentinel, as he challenged the patrol or relief. The swaying branches of the trees in the moonlight cast all sorts of fantastic forms on the crystal snow. In this deep solitude, I was watching for danger and communing with the spirit of the past. At this very spot, a few nights before, the vidette had been fired on by a scouting party of infantry that had come up from McClellan's camps below. But the old gray horse had several times got up a panic there which raised a laugh on the soldiers.

Now I confess that I was about as much afraid of ridicule as of being shot, and so, unless I got killed or captured, I resolved to spend the night there. Horatius Cocles was not more determined to hold his position on the bridge of the Tiber, than I was to stay at my post, but perhaps his motives were less mixed than mine. I had been long pondering and remembering, and in my reverie had visited the fields that I had traversed "in life's morning march when my bosom was young." I was suddenly aroused by the crash of footsteps breaking the crust of the hard snow. The sound appeared to proceed from something approaching me with the measured tread of a file of soldiers. It was screened from my view by some houses near the roadside. I was sure that it was an enemy creeping up to get a shot at me, for I thought that even the old horse would not have ventured out on such a night, unless under orders. My heart began to sicken within me pretty much like Hector's did when he had to face the wrath of Achilles. My horse, shivering with cold, with the instinct of danger, pricked up his ears and listened as eagerly as I did to the footsteps as they got near. I drew my pistol, cocked it, and took aim at the corner around which this object must come. I wanted to get the advantage of the first shot. Just then the hero of a hundred panics appeared--the old gray horse! I returned my pistol to my belt and relapsed into reverie. I was happy: my credit as a soldier had been saved.

Now, while I felt so much oppressed by the presence of men of such high rank, there was nothing in their deportment that produced it. It was the same way the next morning. Stuart had to send after me to come in to breakfast. I went pretty much in the same dutiful spirit that Gibbon says that he broke his marriage engagement: "I sighed as a lover and obeyed as a son." But now my courage rose; I actually got into conversation with Joe Johnston, whom I would have regarded it as a great privilege the day before to view through a long-range telescope. The generals talked of Judah P. Benjamin's breach of courtesy to Stonewall Jackson that had caused Jackson to send in his resignation. They were all on Jackson's side. There was nothing going on about Centreville to indicate the evacuation that took place three weeks after that. Stuart let me have a horse to ride back to camp. As soon as I got there, Col. Jones sent for me to come to his tent. I went, and he offered me the place of adjutant of the regiment. I had had no more expectation of such a thing than of being translated on Elijah's chariot to the skies. Of course, I accepted it. I was never half as much frightened in any fight I was in as I was on the first dress parade I conducted. But I was not permitted to hold the position long. About two months after that, when we had marched to meet McClellan at, Yorktown, my regiment reorganized under the new act of the Confederate Congress. Fitz Lee was elected colonel in place of Jones. This was the result of an attempt to mix democracy with military discipline. Fitz Lee did not reappoint me as adjutant, and so I lost my first commission on the spot where Cornwallis lost his sword. This was at the time an unrecognized favor. If I had been retained as adjutant, I would probably have never been anything else. So at the close of the first year of the war I was, in point of rank, just where I had begun. Well, it did not break my heart. When the army was retiring from Centreville, Stuart's cavalry was the rear guard, and I had attracted his favorable notice by several expeditions I had led to the rear of the enemy. So Stuart told me to come to his headquarters and act as a scout for him. A scout is not a spy who goes in disguise, but a soldier in arms and uniform, who goes among as enemy's lines to get information about them. Among the survivors of the Army of the Potomac there are many legends afloat, and religiously believed to be true, of a mysterious person--a sort of Flying Dutchman or Wandering Jew--prowling among their camps in the daytime in the garb of a beggar or with a pilgrim's staff, and leading cavalry raids upon them at night. In popular imagination, I have been identified with that mythical character.

On the day after Mr. Lincoln's assassination, Secretary Stanton telegraphed to Gen. Hancock, then in command at Winchester, Va., that I had been seen at the theatre in Washington on that fatal night. Fortunately, I could prove an alibi by Hancock himself, as I was at that very time negotiating a truce with him. I recently heard an officer of the United States army tell a story of his being with the guard for a wagon train, and my passing him with my command on the pike, all of us dressed as Federal soldiers, and cutting the train out from behind him. I laughed at it, like everybody who heard it, and did not try to unsettle his faith. To have corrected it would have been as cruel as to dispel the illusion of childhood that the story of "Little Red Riding Hood" is literally true, or to doubt the real presence of Santa Claus. It was all pure fiction about our being dressed in blue uniforms, or riding with him. I did capture the wagon train at the time and place mentioned, Oct. 26, 1863, at the Chestnut Fork, near Warrenton, Va., but we never even saw the guard. They had got sleepy, and gone on to camp, and left me to take care of their wagons--which I did. The quartermaster in charge of them, Capt. Stone, who was made prisoner, called to pay his respects to me a few days ago. I can now very well understand how the legendary heroes of Greece were created. I always wore the Confederate uniform, with the insignia of my rank. So did my men. So any success I may have had, either as an individual scout or partisan commander, cannot be accounted for on the theory that it was accomplished through disguise. The hundreds of prisoners I took are witnesses to the contrary.

FAUQUIER COUNTY, VA., Feb. 4, 1863.

GENERAL:--I arrived in this neighborhood about one week ago. Since then I have been, despite the bad weather, quite actively engaged with the enemy. The result up to this time has been the capture of twenty-eight Yankee cavalry together with all their horses, arms, etc. The evidence of parole I forward with this. I have also parolth-giving experience of a camping trip."

Thus it was that the party had come together. They knew perfectly that once in the mountains after winter should set in in earnest their communication with the country below must be very uncertain. They therefore, took with them on their own backs and on the backs of their pack mules those necessaries which would most certainly render them independent of other sources of supply. The Doctor had largely directed the selection of food stuffs, bringing to bear upon it an expert knowledge which the boys, of course, did not possess.

"The basis will be beans," he said.

"But why beans?" asked Jack.

"For several reasons. First, because beans will keep all winter. Second, because beans are very nearly perfect food for robust people. They have fat in them, and that makes heat, and they have starch and gluten in them too, so that they are in fact both meat and bread. Pound for pound, dried beans are about the most perfect food possible. To make them palatable we must take some dry salted pork along. We can carry that better than pickled pork in kegs and we shall not have to carry a lot of useless brine if we take the dry salted meat."

The Doctor added some dried beef, a few hams, some bacon and a supply of sugar.

"Sugar," he explained, "is almost pure nutriment. It is food so concentrated that it ought never to be taken . B. STUART.

HEADQUARTERS CAVALRY DIVISION, Feb. 8, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded as additional proof of the prowess, daring, and efficiency of Mosby and his band of a dozen chosen spirits.

Headquarters, Feb. 11, 1863.

Respectfully forwarded to the Adjutant and Inspector-General as evidence of merit of Capt. Mosby.

After the battle of Fredericksburg, in December, 1862, there was a lull in the storm of war. The men on the outposts along the Rappahannock had a sort of truce to hostilities, and began swapping tobacco and coffee, just as the soldiers of Wellington and Soult, on the eve of a great battle, filled their canteens from the same stream. At that time, Stuart determined to make a Christmas raid about Dumfries, which was on Hooker's line of communication with Washington. I went with him. He got many prisoners, and wagons loaded with bon-bons and all the good things of the festive season. It made us happy, but almost broke the sutlers' hearts. A regiment of Pennsylvania cavalry left their camp on the Occoquan, and their Christmas turkeys, and came out to look for us. They had better have stayed at home; for all the good they did was to lead Stuart's cavalry into their camp as they ran through it. After leaving Dumfries, Stuart asked me to take Beattie and go on ahead. The road ran through a dense forest, and there was danger of an ambuscade, of which every soldier has a horror who has read of Braddock's defeat. Beattie and I went forward at a gallop, until we met a large body of cavalry. As no support was in sight, several officers made a dash at us, and at the same time opened such a fire as to show that peace on earth and good will to men, which the angels and morning stars had sung on that day over 1800 years ago, was no part of their creed. The very fact that we did not run away ought to have warned them that somebody was behind us. When the whole body had got within a short distance of us, Stuart, who had heard the firing, came thundering up with the 1st Virginia cavalry. All the fun was over with the Pennsylvanians then. There was no more merry Christmas for them. Wade Hampton was riding by the side of Stuart. He went into the fight and fought like a common trooper. The combat was short and sharp, and soon became a rout; the Federal cavalry ran right through their camp, and gave a last look at their turkeys as they passed. But alas! they were "grease, but living grease no more" for them. There was probably some method in their madness in running through their camp. They calculated, with good reason, that the temptation would stop the pursuit.

A few days ago I read, in a book giving the history of the telegraph in the war, the despatch sent to Washington by the operator near there: "The 17th Pennsylvania cavalry just passed here, furiously charging to the rear." When we got to Burke's Station, on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, while his command was closing up, Stuart put his own operator in charge of the instrument, and listened to a telegraphic conversation between the general commanding at Fairfax Court-House and the authorities at Washington. In order to bewilder and puzzle them, he sent several messages, which put them on a false scent. Just before leaving, he sent a message to Quartermaster-General Meigs, complaining of the inferior quality of the mules recently furnished by him. The wire was then cut. Having learned by the telegraph that Fairfax Court-House was held by a brigade of infantry, Stuart marched around north of it, and went into Loudoun--a land flowing with plenty. He made his headquarters at Col. Rogers's, near Dover, and rested until the next day. On the morning he left, I went to his room, and asked him to let me stay behind for a few days with a squad of men. I thought I could do something with them. He readily assented. I got nine men--including, of course, Beattie--who volunteered to go with me. This was the beginning of my career as a partisan. The work I accomplished in two or three days with this squad induced him to let me have a larger force to try my fortune. I took my men down into Fairfax, and in two days captured twenty cavalrymen, with their horses, arms, and equipments. I had the good luck, by mere chance, to come across a forester named John Underwood, who knew every rabbit-path in the county. He was a brave soldier, as well as a good guide. His death a few months afterward, at the hands of a deserter from our own army, was one of the greatest losses I sustained in the war. I dismounted to capture one of the picket posts, who could be seen by the light of their fire in the woods. We walked up within a few yards of it. The men, never suspecting danger, were absorbed in a game of euchre. I halted, and looked on for a minute or two, for I hated to spoil their sport. At last I fired a shot, to let them know that their relief had come. Nobody was hurt; but one fellow was so much frightened that he nearly jumped over the tops of the trees.

They submitted gracefully to the fate of war. I made them lie down by a fence, and left a mounted man to stand guard over them while I went to capture another post about two miles off. These were Vermont cavalry, and being from the land of steady habits did not indulge in cards like their New York friends, whom I had just left in the fence corner. I found them all sound asleep in a house, except the sentinel. Their horses were tied to the trees around it. The night was clear and crisp and cold. As we came from the direction of their camp, we were mistaken for the patrol until we got upon them. The challenge of the sentinel was answered by an order to charge, and it was all over with the boys from the Green Mountains. Their surprise was so great that they forgot that they had only pistols and carbines. If they had used them, being in a house, they might have driven us off. They made no resistance. The next day I started back to rejoin Stuart, who was near Fredericksburg. I found him in his tent, and when I reported what I had done, he expressed great delight. So he agreed to let me go back with fifteen men and try my luck again. I went and never returned. I was not permitted to keep the men long. Fitz Lee complained of his men being with me, and so I had to send them back to him. But while I had them I kept things lively and humming. I made many raids on the cavalry outposts, capturing men, arms, and horses. Old men and boys had joined my band. Some had run the gauntlet of Yankee pickets, and others swam the Potomac to get to me. Most men love the excitement of fighting, but abhor the drudgery of camps. I mounted, armed and equipped my command at the expense of the United States government. There was a Confederate hospital in Middleburg, where a good many wounded Confederate soldiers had been left during our Maryland campaign a few months before. These were now convalescent. I utilized them. They would go down to Fairfax on a raid with me, and then return to the hospital. When the Federal cavalry came in pursuit, they never suspected that the cripples they saw lying on their couches or hobbling about on crutches were the men who created the panic at night in their camps. At last I got one of the cripples killed, and that somewhat abated their ardor.

There are many comic as well as tragic elements that fill up the drama of war. One night I went down to Fairfax to take a cavalry picket. When I got near the post I stopped at the house of one Ben Hatton. I had heard that he had visited the picket post that day to give some information to them about me. I gave him the choice of Castle Thunder or guiding me through the pines to the rear of the picket.

That gracefully and gayly springs, As o'er the marble courts of kings.

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