, ME MO IBS OF THE CONFEDEKATE WAR, FOE - / INDEPENDENCE BY HEEOS VON BOECKE LATELY CHIEF OF STAFF TO GENF.KAL J. E. B. STUART IN TWO VOLUMES, WITH A MAP VOL. I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBUKGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXVI The Right of Translation is reserved ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD g MAGAZINE. TO MY OLD COMRADES OF THE LATE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA, BY ONE OF ITS SOLDIERS, HEEOS VON BORCKE. PEEFACE. THE kind interest with which the public re ceived the Memoirs as they appeared in Black- wood s Magazine induced me to think of re- publishing them. When they were on the point of republication, the news reached me that my King had called his people to arms against Austria and her allies. I offered at once my sword to my native country, and had the proud satisfaction of fighting, in the army of Prince Frederick Charles, in the great battle of Konigsgraetz, and of taking part in the vic torious advance through Bohemia, Moravia, and the Duchy of Austria. A new great war has turned the interest of the public to new matters, many months have passed away since the termination of the great American struggle, Vlll PREFACE. and many may have forgotten that the splen did Army of Virginia was ever in existence ; but I do not hesitate to publish my account of battles lost and won, trusting that there are many still left who will read with some inter est the simple narrative of a soldier who is proud to have shared the sufferings and the glory of the unfortunate people of the late Confederacy. HEEOS VON BOECKE, OF THE 3D PRUSSIAN DRAGOONS. PRUSSIA, October 25, 1866. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAPTER I. PAGE Voyage, and arrival in the States, 1 CHAPTER II. The battle of Seven Pines The Pamunkey expedition, . . .24 CHAPTER III. The battle of Mechanicsville The battle of Coal Harbour or Games Mill Ride over the battle-field Success at the White House Reflections on the battles before Richmond, . . .51 CHAPTER IV. Ride to Richmond Expedition on the James river A prisoner of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry Fishing and shooting Sunday in Camp Headquarters at Hanover Court-house Camp .scenes Fights and reconnaissances Rattlesnake and bull-frog De parture from Dundee, 73 CHAPTER V. Opening of the summer campaign in Virginia Adventure at Ver- diersville The first cavalry-fight at Brandy Station Fight at Cunningham s Ford Heavy artillery-fight between the Hazel and Rappahannock rivers Passage of the latter, and march to Warrenton and Catlett s Station Artillery engagement Re- crossing of the Rappahannock Fights at Waterloo Bridge CONTENTS. March to Salem and Bristow Station Capture of the large Fede ral supply-depots Fight at Manassas Plains Fights prelimi nary to the second battle of Manassas Second great battle of Manassas, or battle of Groveton From the second battle of Manassas to the invasion of Maryland, 102 CHAPTER VI, f , The autumn campaign in Maryland Grand ball at Urbana Start from Urbana Fights near Frederick and Middletown March to Harper s Ferry Fight at Crampton s Gap Exciting time in Pleasant Valley Surrender of Harper s Ferry March to Sharpsburg Bombardment of Sharpsburg The battle of Sharps- burg or Antietam Day after the battle, and recrossing the Potomac, . 181 CHAPTER VII. Demonstration into Maryland Outpost-duty and fights on the Potomac Eenewed fighting, and passage of the Potomac by night Camp at Martinsburg and Charlestown Virginia part ridges and a Virginia plantation Escape of a spy Advance and repulse of the enemy Visits to neighbours, . . .242 CHAPTER VIII. Change of headquarters Fighting resumed Camp life at "The Bower "Pleasantries with Pleasanton We lose and recapture Martinsburg Osculatory ovation at Shepherdstown With a flag of truce into the enemy s lines Field-sports and dramatic entertainments New uniform coat for General Jackson, . . 266 CHAPTER IX. The expedition into Pennsylvania Life at " The Bower " during General Stuart s absence The General s own report of the ex pedition Camp life at " The Bower" continued, and threatened final departure, with an interlude of two days fighting near Kearneysville A vivacious visitor Military review At last we break up camp at " The Bower," ME MOIES OF THE CONFEDEKATE WAK. CHAPTEE I. VOYAGE, AND ARRIVAL IN THE STATES. ON the 29th day of April 1862, I embarked at Queenstown on board the fine new steamer Hero, a vessel which had been built for running the block ade into the ports of the Confederate States of America, and was soon upon the bright waters of the Channel, bound for the theatre of war in the New World. Several most agreeable companions shared with me the accommodations of the steamer, and with smooth seas and pleasant skies we made a delightful voyage of twenty days to Nassau, un attended by any other than the ordinary incidents of the ocean transit. Off the Spanish coast we skirted a heavy gale ; but as we proceeded from high to low VOL. I. A : ESCAPE FEOM CAPTURE. latitudes the weather became every day more and more charming, until we ran upon an even keel into the blue phosphorescent seas that lave the coral reefs of the Bahamas. Here we met with an interruption which seemed likely for a time to terminate my American adventures, if I may be allowed the Hiber- nicism, before they had begun. As we were nearing the island of New Providence, within sight of the island of Abaco, a steamer appeared on our quarter bearing towards us under English colours. The cap tain of the Hero, apprehending no trouble from a vessel which he mistook for the regular English mail-packet, kept on his course, though it would have been an easy matter to escape the pursuit of the stranger had he supposed her intentions were unfriendly. As we came within range, a light puff of smoke from the stranger s side, and the whiz of a shell through the air a little astern of us, made it clear enough that the purpose was to board the Hero; and accordingly our engines were immediately stopped, and there speedily danced alongside a small boat, from which three Federal officers ascended to our decks. The steamer proved to be the U.S. gunboat Merce- dita, and her commander, not doubting for a moment that he had made a valuable capture, had sent off a boat s crew to take possession of his prize. Whether the officers who represented him were annoyed at YANKEE INCIVILITY. 3 discovering that the Hero was not as yet liable to capture, or whether incivility was habitual to them, it is certain that they behaved towards us with a degree of rudeness such as I have rarely witnessed. After a detention of five hours, however, we were permitted to continue our course ; the Federal officers rowed back to the Mercedita, and we had the satisfaction of seeing that vigilant cruiser soon become a mere speck on the evening horizon. I was the more disturbed by this most unwel come visitation, because it deprived me of many valuable papers and MSS., letters of introduction, and the like, which, fearing they might be seized and read by our visitors, I burned upon their ap proach. A few hours later the island of Abaco appeared plainly in view, and with the rich sunset we ran past the islets of coral, each tufted with tropical vegeta tion, which mark the entrance of the harbour of Nassau. The cargo of the Hero consisting in great part of powder, we were compelled, in accordance with the regulations of the port, to lie-to five miles off shore ; but the vessel having been signalled, a boat was soon sent to us, from which stepped aboard a young English midshipman whor could not have been more than fourteen years of age, but who seemed fully conscious of the importance wherewith 4 LANDING AT NASSAU. he was clothed by her Majesty s uniform. This beardless officer, having taken a look at the ship s papers and a glass of grog with becoming dignity, returned to Nassau, leaving us ill content to remain all night in the steamer, from which we saw the sparkling lights of the city and caught the delicious perfume wafted seaward from the island. At six o clock next morning we found the ship surrounded by barges filled with negroes, who clamoured loudly for the privilege of taking us ashore. We had some difficulty in conducting negotiations from the ship s side amid the horrible din that assailed our ears, but we at last succeeded in securing a boat with six dusky oarsmen, two or three of them Africans by birth, who pulled us to the landing in two and a half hours. The sun poured down upon the sea with almost intolerable fervour, but there was refreshment in looking into the cool blue water, which was so marvellously clear that we could easily distinguish the pebbles strewn upon the bottom at the depth of forty feet. New Providence is the smallest of the Bahamas, belonging to the West Indian Archipelago, and con tains about 13,000 inhabitants, of whom two-thirds are free negroes, under the colonial government of Great Britain. Nassau, its only port, was a gay enough little place at the time of my visit, though, FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF IT. 5 doubtless, with the discontinuance of its trade with the Southern ports, through the Federal blockade, it has subsided into its normal quietude ; the busy population that was then seen upon its wharves has most probably disappeared, and the buzz of animated conversation is heard no more on summer evenings along the verandahs of the Eoyal Victoria Hotel. This large and comfortable establishment occupies the highest point of the island, and looks down upon the town, which stretches away to the right and left, terraced from the sea in regular gradations of ascent. What strikes one most forcibly in the external ap pearance of Nassau are the violent contrasts it presents to the eye. Nothing is subdued. The white Spanish houses absolutely glister in the overpowering glare of the sun. The roofs are as white as if they were covered with snow, being constructed, like the walls, of the coral formation of the island. The streets and roadways are dazzlingly white, and an impalpable dust rises in white clouds from every passing vehicle. The men are dressed in white from top to toe white muslin turbans around their straw hats, and their feet encased in white canvass shoes, like those worn by the boating crews of the Thames rowing-clubs. Such are the lights of the picture. The shadows are supplied by the dark foli age of the orange and banana trees, the dense shade 6 THE "IRREPRESSIBLE NEGRO." of the laurel thickets, and the intense black of the faces of the negroes. Black waiters at the hotel, black shopkeepers in the town, black soldiers on guard, black belles on the promenade the effect was striking against the whiteness of the buildings and the thoroughfares. The "irrepressible negro" asserts himself immensely at Nassau. He seeks, and not altogether in vain, to unite the greatest possible amount of consequence with the least possible amount of work. But the negro women amused me most of any. In all their native hideousness of form and feature, they bedizen their persons with European costumes, of every fashion, fabric, and colour, and walk the streets with a solemn dignity that even a Spanish hidalgo might envy. I had not supposed that I should be so much im pressed with the variety and beauty of the vegetable and insect life of the tropics ; but even the broil ing sun did not deter me from making daily little excursions around the island, armed with a white cotton umbrella, and wearing, after the manner of the foreign residents, the broad-brimmed Panama hat with its encircling muslin turban. I must have afforded some amusement to the natives, and others familiar with tropical scenery, as I stalked abroad thus defended, stopping every now and then to exa mine some strange and beautiful flower, or to admire TROPICAL SCENERY. 7 the innumerable humming-birds and gorgeous but terflies that fluttered above it, or to purchase, at the stalls of the incessantly chattering negresses, luscious fruits which they offered me, and of which I did not even know the name. The heat of the day was tem pered, up to the hour of 10 A.M., by a mild sea-breeze, but the air then became perfectly calm and slumber ous, and about mid-day the sun was burning with such power that one felt oppressed as by a leaden weight upon the chest. I rose generally at five in the morning and strolled down to the negro cottages, some of which were very pleasant little dwellings, and all were surrounded by small gardens filled with a profusion of fruit and flowers. Here I first saw the pine-apple growing in the open air, the orange- tree, heavy with its golden globes and fragrant blos soms, the palmetto, and the cocoa-palm with its ripen ing nuts, the cactus of every size, from the small creeper, winding along the rocks and walls, to the large tree-like specimen that lifts its head high above the ground, and flings out its scarlet bloom like a banner in the air. Near to the hotel was a magnifi cent cotton-tree of tremendous size, the trunk being fifteen feet in diameter, and the branches covering nearly an acre of ground, which was justly esteemed the pride of the island. Here, as indeed every where else, were hundreds of lizards darting over the 8 SUNSET FROM OUR HOTEL. rocky surface, of which the most interesting was the chameleon, so strangely and rapidly changing its colours. Among the guests in the Eoyal Victoria Hotel at this time were many gentlemen of the Confederate States, who, as soon as my intentions were made known to them, manifested the liveliest interest in my behalf; and a number of captains of steamers destined for Southern ports, with like unanimity, offered me a free passage to the " sunny South." It was our custom to assemble on the highest verandah of the building to witness the setting of the sun, which seemed to dive into the blue ocean, reddening and gilding with transient splendours the distant reefs of coral. No lingering, pensive twilight, such as belongs to the latitude of England in the long days of summer, marks the approach of night in the Bahamas. For a brief period sky and wave are tinged with crimson, and then " at one stride came the dark." The decline of the sun was the signal for all the flowers, shrivelled and half-killed by the day s heat, to open their long-closed petals, lading the air with voluptuous perfumes, which were borne to us by every passing breeze. Myriads of fire-flies glittered around us ; the temperature was delight ful; the stars shone with a brilliancy unknown to me; and I enjoyed the strange, mysterious beauty EMBARK FOR THE STATES. 9 of those tropical nights more deeply than I can express. I had linked my fortunes upon the Atlantic with those of the Hero, but it very soon appeared that she would be obliged to unload a portion of her cargo at Nassau, and thus be detained at that port for several weeks. The news from America by every arrival be came more and more exciting. It appeared inevitable that heavy battles would very soon be fought before Richmond, and I earnestly desired to take an active part in them. My position, besides, was embarrass ing. My letters of introduction and recommenda tion had been destroyed. I did not know a human being in the foreign country whither I was going, nor did I even speak the English language. I was at a loss, therefore, to conjecture how I should carry out my objects. At this juncture, one of my travelling companions, Mr W., readily apprehending my diffi culty, gave me the best proof of his friendship by offering to run the blockade with me in the next steamer to Charleston, and accompany me, without loss of time, to Richmond, where he would present me to the authorities. Accordingly we found our selves, five days after our arrival at Nassau, early on the morning of the 22d May, on board the steamer Kate, and soon Nassau, with its white houses and white streets, and dark laurel thickets, and harbour 10 THE EXCITEMENTS OF crowded with steamers, among which I regarded with peculiar interest the well-known Nashville, was far behind us. The first two days of our voyage to Charleston passed without incident, but on the morning of the third we ran in sight of the coast of Florida, and the greatest excitement prevailed in our small community, the Federal blockading squadron being, as we knew, not far distant. Our furnaces were fed with the anthracite coal of America, which emits but little smoke to arrest the notice of blockaders ; yet we proceeded very cautiously at half-speed, until we arrived within fifty miles by chart of Charleston harbour, when we stopped to await the protecting darkness of the coming night. At that time run ning the blockade was not thought so easy a matter as it afterwards proved to be, and the anxiety of many of our passengers began to be gravely and, in some cases, ludicrously exhibited. The vigilant cap tain did not leave the mast-head ; and whoever could procure a marine glass swept the line of sea and sky for hours together, looking out in every direction with the greatest solicitude for the dreaded sails of the Federal cruisers. I had myself got my arms ready, and gathered together such of my effects as I supposed I should need most in future cam paigning, so that in case we should be chased and BLOCKADE -KUNNING. 11 obliged to abandon the vessel I might be able to carry them with me in the small boat. But no cruiser appeared, all remained quiet, and about dusk the sky began to be darkened with heavy clouds, which were greeted by us with extreme satisfaction. There was a large quantity of powder on board the Kate, and this powder for some reason had been stored immediately beneath the decks : we had therefore an uncomfortably reasonable prospect of being blown into eternity by the first shell from the Federal fleet that should be only too well directed. The captain had informed us of this circumstance before he consented to receive us as passengers, but we willingly accepted the risk, " trusting to luck " as to the steamer and ourselves. At nightfall our engines were again set in motion; the clouds had overspread the whole firmament ; only here and there a star twinkled through the black canopy ; and the sombre silence was unbroken save by the sound of the paddles striking against the water, and the whispers of our ship s company, who were all on deck peering out most anxiously into the surround ing darkness. It was about an hour past midnight when, reach ing the entrance of the harbour of Charleston, we discovered a red light on our right hand, a green light on our left hand, and seven or eight others of 12 A FRIENDLY SHOT. various colours at a little distance all around us. These were the Federal blockaders awaiting their prey, and right between them had we to pass. The excitement now mounted to its highest point. The reflection of the red light upon the water ran out towards us like the coil of a fiery serpent, seeming to touch the wheelhouse, and to sport with the re flection of the green light from the opposite quarter, and we expected every moment to hear the booming of the blockaders guns ; but good fortune favoured us the dreaded lights were soon glimmering in our wake and from the frowning fortress of Sumter there thundered forth, as we interpreted it, a friendly salute that gladdened every heart. With no complimentary intentions, however, was this gun fired. We had been mistaken for an enemy, and had a narrow escape of being sent to the bottom by Confederate cannoneers, after having safely passed the perils of the blockade. But the good fortune of the Kate did not forsake her in this critical moment. Our engines were immediately stopped, a boat came off from the fort, explanations and congratulations were interchanged, after which we moved in perfect secu rity up the harbour. Nature demanded rest after so much fatigue, sleeplessness, and excitement, and I was fast asleep when the Kate ran slowly into the dock. FIRST VIEW OF CHARLESTON. 13 The early morning found me awake and looking with great interest upon the strange land where I knew not what the immediate future had in store for me. Charleston lay before me in the full splendour of the newly-risen sun, and presented with its harbour full of vessels, its commodious villa-like private dwell ings, its luxuriant gardens, its straight streets lined on either side by noble trees, its sparkling sea-front, against which the blue wave broke gently a magnifi cent appearance. As I walked into the town 1 could not fail to remark the absence of that bustle one usually finds in a large city. This was explained by the fact that an attack by the Federal fleet was daily expected, in consequence of which many places of business were closed, and many families had gone into the interior. But if the traffic of the town was suspended, the streets gave evidence every where of great military activity. Companies of in fantry in every variety of dress and armed with all sorts of weapons were marching about, and cavalry men in the most picturesque costumes were galloping up and down on fine-looking horses. Accustomed as I was to European discipline and uniform, I must confess that on me the first impression of these Con federate soldiers was not favourable, and far was I from any idea how soon these same men would excite my highest admiration on the battle-field. But I 14 AMERICAN RAILWAYS. had little opportunity for extended observation at Charleston. The train for Kichmond left the station about noon, and I was of its passengers, wondering at the odd-shaped, long lumbering railway carriage or " car," rolling, rapidly and dangerously, with more than fifty other occupants, towards the scene of military operations in Virginia. I need say nothing of the wretched railway system, or want of system, of America ; the single line of rails, the loosely -built road-bed, the frightful trestle-work over deep gorges, the frail wooden bridges thrown across rushing rivers, and the headlong speed at which the train is often urged on its perilous way. With every month of the war the railroads of the Southern States became worse and worse, until a long journey by rail say from Montgomery to Kichmond was as hazardous as picket duty on the Potomac. But our journey to Eichmond was safely and comfortably accomplished. Whizzing through the rice and cotton fields, the oozy swamps and dark pine-woods of the two Carolinas, we came at last to forests of oak and hickory, alternating with peaceful- looking farms and fertile estates in the fair land of the " Old Dominion ;" and, crossing the James river upon a bridge of giddy elevation, we entered within the walls of the Confederate capital. Eichmond, the seat of government of Virginia, and, FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF RICHMOND. J5 for four years, of the Confederate States, had at that time about 70,000 inhabitants. Unrivalled in America for the picturesque beauty of its situation on the north bank of the James river, it impressed the stranger most agreeably by its general air of comfort, cleanli ness, and thrift. Opposite the upper portion of the city the river flows between lofty hills over a rocky bed, which breaks it into innumerable cascades, murmuring in the stillness of the night a perpetual lullaby to the inhabitants. In the immediate centre of the town is a pretty little park, with several fine statues, some trumpery fountains, and a grove of umbrageous lindens, surrounding the Capitol, a large building of brick and stucco, erected in 1785, which looks noble in the distant view, but is mean and paltry upon near approach. The streets are long and straight, intersecting each other, with few exceptions, at right angles, and shaded through out the larger part of the city s limits by native trees, the maple and tulip -poplar predominating. Pleasant dwellings, with porticoes and trellised ver andahs, embowered in gardens, crowned the hills dwellings that still remain to render more painful by contrast the ruin caused by the great conflagration which, three years later, laid the whole business quarter of the town in ashes. The external aspect of Richmond, at the period of my first acquaintance 16 ASPECT OF THE CITY. with it, was indeed very striking. It was the season of roses, and Nature, unconscious of wa*r, had arrayed herself in all her pomp to welcome the ardent and prodigal Southern summer. Nothing could seem more peaceful than Franklin Street at evening, with groups of ladies and officers in the porticoes enjoying the cool hours that succeeded to the fierce heats of the day. Nothing could more plainly denote the condition of war than the appearance of the principal thorough fares and the highways leading into the country. The din of active preparation struck continuously upon the ear in the roar of the forge, and the clatter of the army-waggon, and the heavy tramp of armed men. Large bodies of troops were marching and countermarching through the streets, orderlies and couriers were galloping about in every direction, and the notes of the fife and drum had hardly died away in the distance before the echoes were waked by the stormier music of a full military band. The vast army of M Clellan hovered upon the northern and eastern skirts of the city, and over the line of the Chickahominy, which might be faintly traced from the tops of the highest buildings, his camp-fires could even be seen by night, and his balloons of observa tion, hanging like oranges in the sky, were clearly discernible in the afternoon. It was plain enough that an attack of the enemy in heavy force was ex- MY FIRST DIFFICULTIES. 17 pected at any moment. Under such exciting circum stances it was no less remarkable than gratifying to see how calmly and with what perfect confidence the people awaited the momentous events which were so near at hand. In the uncertain state of affairs at Kichmond, the prices of all articles in the shops augmented daily, but I converted my gold into Confederate money at a broker s at the liberal rate of two for one, and thought it a very clever financial operation. The difficulties I met with, however, in securing a posi tion in the army were far greater than I had expected. The ashes of my letters of introduction were sus pended in the restless waters of the Atlantic. The Government, I found, was disinclined to give com missions to foreigners, all the officers of the Con federate army at that time, except the general and staff officers, being elected by the men ; and although Mr W., by repeated applications to the different authorities, had done all in his power to further my interests, he had met with no success whatever. At length, on the evening of his departure from the city, he informed me that he had seen the Secretary of War, General Eandolph, who had manifested much interest in my situation, and would grant me an interview at one o clock the next day. At the ap pointed hour I repaired to the War Department, and VOL. I. B 18 THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIERY. was received with great kindness by General Kan- dolph, a most intelligent and amiable gentleman, who, after I had endeavoured to explain to him my plans and wishes in execrable English, gave me a letter to General J. E. B. Stuart, then commanding the cavalry of the army defending Eichmond, and, at the same time, an order to procure a horse at the Government stables, with the advice to lose not a moment if I de sired to see something of the impending battles. The Government stables were full of good horses, and I had no difficulty in finding an excellent chestnut mare, which afterwards carried me nobly on many a hard ride. At the earliest dawn of morning, on the 30th, an orderly reported to me with the mare in front of my hotel, and I junfped into the saddle, well equipped from head to foot, full of strength and buoyant in spirits, to ride forward to the field. We trotted out of the city, and across the wooded plain through which runs the Brooke turnpike, pass ing the extensive fortifications and the long lines of the Confederate army. With the liveliest interest I looked upon these masses of warrior-like men, in their ill-assorted costumes, who had come with alacrity from the Carolinas, from distant Mississippi and yet more distant Texas, from sunny Florida, from fertile Georgia, from Alabama, land of mountain and cane- brake, from the regions of Louisiana, to imperil their SEARCH FOR STUART. 19 lives in the defence of their much-loved South, and for the expulsion of the invader from its borders. Brigade after brigade we saw awaiting the summons to the battle which was so soon to come. It was no easy matter to find General Stuart, who, as command ing officer of the outposts, was anywhere along the extended lines, and the sun was near its setting when we reached the camp of the 1st Virginia Cavalry. Here I presented myself for information to the officer in command, Colonel Fitzhugh Lee, who assured me that it would be next to impossible to find General Stuart that night, and kindly offered me the hospi tality of his tent. As threatening thunder-clouds were driving up the western horizon, and I was much fatigued by my day s ride, I gladly accepted the in vitation. The camp was a novelty to me in the art of castrametation. The horses were not picketed in regular lines as in European armies, but were scat tered about anywhere in the neighbouring wood, some tethered to swinging limbs, some tied to small trees, others again left to browse at will upon the undergrowth. In a very short time I was perfectly at home in the Colonel s tent, where the officers of his regiment had assembled, and where the lively strains of the banjo alternated with patriotic songs and animated discourse. During the evening a sup per was served which, under existing circumstances, 20 A CAMP BKEAKFAST. was really luxurious, and one of the chief dishes of which consisted of the eggs of the terrapin found in a creek near the camp by Colonel Lee s faithful negro servant, who was at once head-cook, valet, and steward. I am sure that no work of art from the kitchen of the Cafe Eiche could have been more gratifying to my hungry appetite than these terrapin s eggs taken out of a Virginia swamp and cooked upon the instant in a cavalry encampment. Soon after supper we retired to rest, but little sleep came to my weary eyelids ; for a terrible hurricane, accompanied by thunder and lightning, raged through out the night, the peals of thunder shaking the earth, and the flashes of lightning almost blinding one with their incessant vivid glare. I was awake and fully dressed the next morning when, with the first glimpse of the sun breaking through the battered clouds, the trumpet sounded to saddle, and Colonel Lee informed me he had just received marching orders. He added that he should start in fifteen minutes, and my best chance of meeting General Stuart was to ride with the regiment. It was marvellous to see how readily these unmilitary- looking troopers obeyed the orders of their colonel, and with what discipline and rapidity the breaking up of the camp was managed. I suffered the whole regiment, 800 strong, to pass me, that I might observe more nar- GENERAL J. E. B. STUART. 21 rowly its composition. The scrutiny called forth my admiration. The men were all Virginians, whose easy and graceful seat betrayed the constant habit of horse back exercise, and they were mounted mostly on blooded animals, some of which the most ambitious Guardsman or the most particular " swell " in London would have been glad to show off in Hyde Park. Looking back across three eventful years to that morning s march, I realise how little it was in my thought that my lot should be knit so closely with that of these brave fellows in fatigue and in fight, and that I should have to mourn the loss of, alas ! so many who afterwards fell around me in battle. After a ride of three hours, passing directly through Eichmond to the opposite side of the city, we reached our destination, and Colonel Lee pointed out to me a man, galloping rapidly along on an active, handsome horse. This was Stuart, the man whose arrival I awaited so anxiously, and who subsequently became one of the truest and best friends I have had in this world. General Stuart was a stoutly -built man, rather above the middle height, of a most frank and winning expression, the lower part of his fine face covered with a thick brown beard, which flowed over his breast. His eye was quick and piercing, of a light blue in repose, but changing to a darker tinge 22 HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE under high excitement. His whole person seemed instinct with vitality, his movements were alert, his observation keen and rapid, and altogether he was to me the model of a dashing cavalry leader. Before the breaking out of hostilities between the North and South, he had served in the 1st United States Cavalry, of which regiment General Joseph E. John ston was the Lieut-Colonel, against the Indians of the Far West, and was severely wounded in an en counter with the Cheyennes on the Solomon s Fork of the Kansas river, in July 1857. In that wild life of the prairie, now chasing the buffalo, now pursuing the treacherous savage, Stuart had passed nearly all his waking hours in the saddle, and thus became one of the most fearless and dexterous horsemen in America, and he had acquired a love of adventure which made activity a necessity of his being. He delighted in the neighing of the charger and the clangour of the bugle, and he had something of Murat s weakness for the vanities of military parade. He betrayed this latter quality in his jaunty uniform, which consisted of a small grey jacket, trousers of the same stuff, and over them high military boots, a yellow silk sash, and a grey slouch hat, surmounted by a sweeping black ostrich plume. Thus attired, sitting gracefully on his fine horse, he did not fail to attract the notice and admiration of all who saw him ride along. This AND CHARACTER, 23 is not the place to expatiate on the military charac ter of General Stuart. His deeds will form the most considerable portion of this narrative, and out of them an estimate of his soldierly qualities will naturally grow up in the reader s mind. At the moment of our first meeting we could exchange but a few words. The battle was just about to commence, and my presentation to him was neces sarily hurried and informal. After reading General Kandolph s letter, he said he should be glad to have me at his side during the day s fight, and then pre sented me to a number of well-mounted young officers, members of his Staff, and to General Longstreet and his suite. At this instant the roar of the artillery gave the signal that the " ball had opened," and the whole cavalcade, the generals leading, proceeded in rapid gallop to the front. CHAPTER II. THE BATTLE OF SEVEN PINES THE PAMUNKEY EXPEDITION. 31st May 1862. This sanguinary fight owes its strange name to seven solitary pine-trees, standing just at the place where death raged most terribly, and where the battle was decided in favour of our arms. About 30,000 men were engaged on our side, whilst the enemy brought about 45,000 into the field. The ground was very unfavourable for operations on either side a broad wooded flat, intersected with morasses and open spaces ; and the roads were bad and marshy beyond description, owing to the late violent rains. I do not propose giving a general description of the engagement, but shall confine myself to my per sonal experiences and impressions, for having no mili tary position as yet, and only taking part in it as a deeply interested spectator, I had no insight into the plan of the commanding general. OPENING OF THE BATTLE. 25 As General Stuart s cavalry could be of little ser vice in the fight, he had been ordered to place it in reserve at the centre, and on the right and left flanks; but he himself was as usual in the thickest of the fray, giving assistance, counsel, and encourage ment to the rest, and letting nothing escape his ob servation. General Longstreet commanded the right wing, and had taken up position on a hill commanding an extended view. The battle was beginning: along the whole line rang the sharp irregular fire of the skirmishers, only now and then broken by the thunder of one of the numerous batteries ; soon, however, the cannonade became general, and the rattle of small arms preced ing the boom of the heavy guns sounded like the sharp explosive crackle one hears before the deeper rumbling of the thunder. It was at this moment that General Stuart sent me with the first order to Colonel Lee. To reach him I had to ride more to the front, and to cross a morass, where some horses belonging to the ambulances were standing. Just as I rode past I heard a loud whiz in the air, and saw one of the horses struck down, and at the same moment was almost deafened by an explosion, which covered me with mud and water. This was the first shell that had burst so close to 26 VICTOKY OF THE CONFEDERATES. me, and a strange feeling came over me at the thought of having been so near death. It was not fear, but a vivid realisation of the pitiless power of destruction which is let loose in war. I discharged my commission without farther adventure, and re turned to the Generals. The battle had meanwhile been turning in our favour ; our troops were slowly pressing back the whole Federal line; only in the centre of our right wing a North Carolina brigade had begun to give way a little before the superior strength of the enemy. Instantly General Stuart was at the spot, encourag ing the troops to hold the position until our rein forcements could arrive. I followed him into the hail of bullets, of whizzing grape and bursting bombs, one of which rolled between my horse s legs. Our men had now expended almost all their am munition, and were falling back, when General Stuart, here with threats, there with eloquent en treaties, rallied them, and brought them forward again into the battle to check the enemy as they pressed hard upon us. A Virginia brigade soon came up as reinforcement. With banners flying, and loud war-cries, they threw themselves unhesitatingly on the foe, driving them before them, and taking their earthworks, which bristled with cannon. PAINFUL SCENES. 27 The setting sun lighted up with crimson splen dour a broad and bloody battle-field, strewn with the dead and wounded of the enemy, and as many brave Confederate soldiers. Numerous prisoners were being brought up from all sides, whom every man and officer not absolutely required to fill the thinning ranks was employed to convey away. Thus I was commissioned by the General to conduct eight soldiers, and a Lieutenant-Colonel who had been wounded in the neck, to join the other prisoners already on their way, by hundreds, to Eichmond. These men had been captured by General Stuart and myself in the mette that succeeded the impetuous onset of the Virginians. Terrible was it to see on every side the wounded returning from the battle : here a man with his head bleeding, there another with shattered arm or leg, reddening the path with his blood ; then the more severely wound ed in the ambulances, groaning and wailing in a manner that made my heart shrink. I was then little accustomed to scenes like this. In this battle, though it could not be called a gene ral one, and though its consequences were of no great importance, the victory, though costly, was complete. Thousands of our brave soldiers were killed or wound ed, and amongst them several generals, one being Johnston the General-in-chief who, just at the close 28 ON GEN. STUART S STAFF. of the fight, was wounded in the shoulder by a ball. General Stuart remained on the battle-field till late at night, and we galloped off together after the last cannon-shots had died away. The ride to head quarters was a dreadful one : hundreds of convey ances, some taking the wounded to Richmond, some coming out from the city with provisions for the troops, were crossing each other in the almost im passable turnpike, and the groans and cries of the wounded were mingled with the curses and shouts of drivers, whose vehicles obstructed the way with broken wheels or exhausted horses. Many of the inhabitants of Richmond had sent their carriages, and the hotels their omnibuses, to bring off the wounded : the greater number of these slightly-built equipages lay broken in the road, and would never again be available for any purpose whatever. General Stuart s headquarters were at a farmhouse named Montebello, which was situated on a hill near Richmond, and from which we had a splendid view of the town, the river, and the environs. To this house we galloped for a short night s rest. Here General Stuart thanked me with only too much warmth for the small services I had rendered during the battle, and said that he would have much pleasure VISIT TO THE BATTLE-FIELD. 29 in placing me on his Staff as a volunteer aide -de camp. Sunday, ]st June. We returned very early the next morning to the battle-field, where there seemed to be a renewal of the fight ; faint musketry fire was audible, and the thunder of cannon roared through the morning air. Not without risk did we reach the field, so rotten was the way and so full of holes, often from four to five feet in depth, and filled with water, so that one could not ride a hundred yards without one s horse slipping and falling. Hundreds of waggons were stuck fast in the road, many of them upset, with the horses lying drowned in front of them, and several still filled with wounded men groaning piteously. After a considerable time we reached the scene of the previous day s victory. Never shall I forget the impression made upon me by this first sight of death and devastation to which I afterwards became so well accustomed. The most horrible spectacle was that presented near the bastions and earthworks which the day before had been stormed by our men. Friend and foe were lying here indiscriminately side by side, mown down in multitudes by musketry and by the guns which we had afterwards taken. The enemy s 30 A DANGEROUS RIDE. artillery had here lost all their horses, which lay by dozens, piled one upon another, and all around the ground was strewn with weapons, haversacks, car tridge-boxes, ammunition, &c. These articles, aban doned by the enemy, were used by us most profitably for the better equipment of our own troops. A South Carolina brigade had taken up its position in the intrenchments near us, and the men lay be hind the breastwork full of confidence and good- humour, quite unmindful of the heaps of slain, and breakfasting on the enemy s provisions, which had been left behind in great quantities. General Stuart had scarcely ridden with us into the intrenchments, when a cannon-ball hissed over our heads and tore up the earth about fifty yards behind us. Other shots followed in rapid succession, and each time the balls came nearer and nearer to our little group. General Stuart, paying no attention to the cannonade, remained until he had completed his observations of this portion of the field, and then desired me to ride with him to our extreme right. We had to cross an open field, and as soon as we had reached it the firing began anew. Nearer and nearer to us fell the shells, exploding with a deafening re port and covering us with earth. We were evidently a mark for the fire of a whole battery, and even General Stuart, who till now had tranquilly pursued A DANGEROUS RIDE. 31 his way, turned round in surprise when the fragments of an exploded grenade flew hissing between us, and said, " Lieutenant, they are firing at us here ; let us ride a little faster ! " We had still about three hundred paces to go before a friendly grove would hide us from the enemy, but this short distance seemed to me like so many miles, and was one of the hottest rides I ever had in my life. The Federals divined our intention only too well, and overwhelmed us with the fire of a whole battery, so that it is almost a miracle that the Gene ral and I escaped uninjured. As we afterwards learned, the Yankees had station ed a scout at the top of a lofty pine-tree, who, when he saw the General, gave the artillery the first direc tion : he paid for it with his life, for one of our sharp shooters detected him, and by a well-directed bullet brought him down. The battle was not renewed ; the firing grew fainter and fainter, until towards one o clock it ceased almost entirely. About this time we returned to the spot where General Longstreet had taken his position the day before, and where several of our generals were assembled, to whom I was presented by General Stuart. President Davis soon came up, congratulat ing the Generals, and expressing his great satisfaction at the issue of the day. 32 GENERAL LONGSTREET. I had now the opportunity of closely observing General Longstreet for the first time. He was a stout man, of middle height, and most agreeable counte nance ; his long brown beard gave something leonine to his appearance ; an engaging simplicity was his prevailing characteristic, manifested not less in his manners than in his dress. It consisted, like that of most of the leading generals of the Confede rate army, of a small black felt hat, a tunic-like grey coat, much faded, on the collar and sleeves of which the devices indicating his rank were scarcely distinguishable, a pair of grey trousers, and military boots with Mexican spurs; a small sword was his only weapon. His steady courage displayed rather by perfect composure under fire, and serene indif- erence to the extremest peril, than, like that of Stuart, in fiery charges and daring enterprise his constant energy in the campaign and obstinacy in the fight, and his strict obedience to orders, made him one of the most useful, as he was always among the most conspicuous, officers in the Confed erate service. By these he gained the full con fidence of the army and its commanding general, Eobcrt E. Lee, who used to call him his war-horse. Longstreet s soldiers were perfectly devoted to him, and I have frequently heard friendly contentions between officers and men of his corps, and those of PRESIDENT DAVIS. 33 Stonewall Jackson s, as to which of the two was the most meritorious and valuable officer. President Jefferson Davis is a tall thin man, with sharply-defined features, an air of easy command, and frank, unaffected, gentlemanlike manners. I had the honour of being presented to him, and was struck with the simple friendly tone in which he conversed with me. He examined with great interest an ex cellent Damascus blade, an old and tried friend of mine, and said he was very glad to know that he had so good a sword and so strong an arm to wield it in his army. The next day did not pass without excitement. A renewed attack from the enemy was expected, and our troops were kept for the greater part of the day under arms. From time to time a single report of cannon was heard, generally fired from our side at the air-balloon which the Yankees had sent up for recon noitring. General Stuart, who commanded our out posts, was constantly in motion, and we were seldom out of the saddle. Our rendezvous and momentary halting-place was near a small farmhouse standing peacefully among hickory and oak trees. Turned into an hospital, the ghastly features and mutilated limbs of the wounded men stretched upon their beds of pain within the building, formed a dreadful con trast to the cheerful exterior. VOL. i. c 34 FARE AT HEADQUARTERS. On the 5th everything was quiet again. On the 6th General Stuart changed his headquarters, and we removed with bag and baggage to a farmhouse about four miles distant, inhabited only by an old man named Waddle. This place, standing at some dis tance from the highroad, was surrounded by copses and thickets, and afforded us a capital opportunity of recovering from our fatigues. We had to provide our own food, which, in consequence of the prevailing scarcity, was scanty and bad ; a little bacon and maize-bread composed our breakfast, dinner, and sup per, and we thought it an extraordinary luxury when we could gather wild strawberries enough in the wood to make a dish to add to our repast. General Stuart, though he sometimes employed me to carry reports to the different generals, usually took me with him on his short reconnoitring rides, in order to make me acquainted with the surrounding country, the position of the army, and the commanders of the divisions and brigades. Towards dusk on the 8th we set out on one of these expeditions, escorted by half-a-dozen of our couriers, and I soon perceived that our ride was to be extended to a greater distance than usual. It was late in the evening when we reached the last of our outposts, and I was not a little surprised when the General here dismissed his escort, and desired me alone to accom- A DANGEROUS EXPEDITION. 35 pany him farther. Silently we rode through the lonely wood, whilst the darkness grew deeper and deeper around us, and the stillness of the forest was only broken by the strange tones of the tree-frog and the melancholy cry of the whip-poor-will. We soon found ourselves within the enemy s lines ; at any moment we might stumble upon one of their patrols ; and General Stuart smiled significantly when he saw me examining the loads of my revolver, and observed that we would not employ firearms except in the last resort, and that in case of an encounter we must make use of our sabres. This ride was strangely exciting to me ; now that I have become so accus tomed to such expeditions, I could go through it with the most perfect composure, but then I was feverishly agitated, and every rustling bough, every bird flying past, increased the strain. After a ride of about five miles we reached a small house, and on General Stuart s knocking at the door in a peculiar manner it was opened to us. The house was inhabited by an Irishman and his family ; and here General Stuart had appointed a rendezvous with one of the spies, in order to obtain an authentic report of the enemy s position. This man had not arrived, so we fastened our horses to the fence and went into the house. Hour after hour went by, but still no one came, and it was past midnight when 36 OUR SAFE RETURN. General Stuart became convinced that some unlooked- for hindrance must be detaining him. No persua sion nor promises of money, not even my offer to accompany him, could induce the old Irishman or his son, a lad of seventeen, to walk over to the spy s abode, which was about two miles distant, and near one of the enemy s camps. So the General and I were obliged ourselves to undertake this dangerous expedition, and with the first glimmer of daylight we mounted our horses and cautiously set off. The peculiar repugnance of the Yankees to patrolling at night and the heavy rain favouring our enterprise, we arrived without misadventure at the man s dwell ing just as the reveille was sounding in the camp only 400 paces distant. The spy being very ill in bed, General Stuart had to dismount and go to his bedside ; and when the General, extremely well satis fied with the information he had obtained, swung himself into the saddle, and we galloped back, it was with a great sense of relief we approached our lines, where we were greeted with delight by our men, who had begun to entertain considerable anxiety on our account. Such rides and expeditions were habitual with this bold General, and we often escaped as by a miracle from the dangers which surrounded us. It was only by this exposure of himself that he could insure the PREPARATIONS FOR ADVANCE. 37 extraordinary success which invariably crowned his expeditions and military operations. The object of this excursion soon appeared. Our cavalry force received orders to provide themselves with rations for three days, and on the 12th we com menced that ride round the army of General M Clel- lan which attracted so much attention even in Europe. June 12, 1862. It was two o clock in the morn ing, and we were all fast asleep, when General Stuart s clear voice awoke us with the words, " Gentlemen, in ten minutes every man must be in his saddle ! " In half the time all the members of the Staff were dressed, and the horses had been fed ; and the ten minutes were scarcely up when we galloped off to overtake the main body, which we reached by about five o clock. Our command was composed of parts of the different regiments of the brigade, and con sisted of about 2500 cavalry, with two pieces of horse- artillery. None of us knew where we were going ; General Stuart only communicated the object of the expedition to the colonels commanding ; never theless every one followed our honoured leader with perfect confidence. We marched the whole day long without halting, and towards evening bivouacked near the little town of Taylorsville in Hanover 38 FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH THE ENEMY. County, where we were already within the enemy s lines. At daybreak we again mounted our horses, and our vanguard was soon reported to have met with a party of the enemy s dragoons, who on their approach had hurried off in hasty flight. Without waiting to pursue them, we continued our march, greeted everywhere with enthusiasm by the inhabit ants, especially by the ladies, who for a long time had seen none other than Federal troops. I was in company with Stuart the whole time, constantly near the vanguard, and could note that every operation was initiated and superintended by the General him self. A few miles from Hanover Court-house we surprised a picket of the enemy s cavalry, every man of which fell into our hands from the suddenness of our attack. Whilst we were occupied with sending the prisoners to the rear, our advance-guard came back at a run, hotly pursued by a large body of the enemy s dragoons. Our leading squadron spurred immediately forward to meet the attack, and, hav ing obtained General Stuart s permission, I joined them as with loud war-cries they hurled them selves against the blue masses of the enemy. The Yankees were not able to withstand the impetu ous onset of the Virginia horsemen, and, after a mette of a very few minutes, there commenced a most exciting chase, which was continued for THE YANKEES AGAIN DEFEATED. 39 nearly three miles. Friend and foe were soon en veloped in blinding clouds of dust, through which pistol and carbine shots were seen darting to and fro like flashes of lightning. The larger number of the enemy escaped, thanks to their fresher animals, but we took many of them prisoners, and their dead and wounded men and horses encumbered the road as we pushed along. Half an hour later our advance-guard again came in collision with the enemy, who had rallied, and, with strong reinforcements, were await ing us. Two squadrons of the 9th Virginia Cavalry were immediately sent forward to the attack, and. I received orders from General Stuart to hasten with our main column to the scene of action. I rode at once to- bring on the main column; but though I used the utmost speed to get back in time to take part in the charge, when I arrived at the scene of the sharp conflict the work had already been done. The enemy s lines were broken and in full flight, leaving many of their dead and wounded, and a large number of prisoners, among whom were several officers, in our hands. We had to lament the loss of the gallant Captain Latane, who, while boldly lead ing his men, fell pierced by five bullets. In a few seconds the 1st Virginia Cavalry had arrived, and we instantly dashed forward in pursuit. The enemy made one more attempt to rally, but 40 DESTRUCTION OF STOKES. their lines were broken by our furious attack ; they fled in confusion, and we chased them in wild pursuit across an open field, through their camp, and far into the woods. When we had returned to their camp the work of destruction began. Every one tried to rescue for himself as much as possible of the articles of luxury with which the Yankees had overloaded themselves, but few succeeded in the end ; for, in accordance with the well-laid plan of our leader, flames flashed up, now in one place, now in another, and in a few minutes the whole camp was enveloped in one blaze, hundreds of tents burning together presenting a wonderfully beautiful spectacle. Many horses and mules, and two captured standards, were all that we carried off with us. After half an hour s halt our destroying cavalry again set forth ; our track of blood and fire pointing out to the enemy the path which we had taken. We now found ourselves in the heart of the enemy s position, and their encampments lay around us on all sides. At one point of our journey, the house occupied by the Federal Commander-in-Chief, General M Clellan, as his headquarters, surrounded by the white tents of a very large camp, was plainly visible at the distance of about two and a half miles. Our situation would have been one of extraordinary peril, had not the boldness and ra- CONTINUED SUCCESSES. 41 pidity of our movements disabled and paralysed our adversaries. On either side of the road we constantly seized upon unsuspecting Federal soldiers, who had no idea of the close proximity of the dreaded Stuart until collared by his horsemen. A considerable number of waggons laden with provisions and goods fell into our hands, among them one containing the personal stores of General M Clellan, with his cigars, wines, and other dainties. But we could not be burdened with booty, so the entire train was committed to the flames, the champagne popped bootlessly, and the cabanas wasted their fragrance on the air. Three transport-ships which lay in the river Pamunkey near at hand, laden with wheat, corn, and provisions from all quarters, were seized by us, together with the guard and the agents stationed there, and ere long the flames mounting towards heaven proclaimed how complete was our work of destruction. A brigade of the enemy s cavalry here sought to in tercept our way and to detain us till the troops, which were marching upon us from all sides, could arrive; but it was broken by our first attack, and crossed our path no more. Thus towards evening we reached the railroad which was so useful to the enemy in giving them communication with the north ; and just as the de- 42 CONFLICT WITH A RAILWAY TRAIN. molition of the road-bed was about to begin, the train was seen coming up. Without delay General Stuart posted a portion of his men on either side of the em bankment, with orders to fire if the train refused to stop at the station. The train moved slowly nearer and nearer, puffing off the steam, and we could soon perceive that it was laden with soldiers, most of them being in open carriages. As the command to stop was disregarded, but on the contrary the movement of the train was accelerated, firing began along our whole line. The engine-driver was shot down by Captain Farley, to whom I had lent my blunderbuss ; but before the deadly bullet reached him he had put the train in somewhat quicker motion, so that we could not make ourselves masters of it. A battle of the strangest description now arose. Some of the soldiers in the train returned our fire, others sprang out to save themselves by flight, or lay down flat at the bottom of the carriages. The train, though its motion had been quickened, was not going at so rapid a pace that we could not keep up with it by galloping hard. Meantime, having had my hat almost knocked off my head by one of the enemy s bullets, I became so wildly excited that, without heed ing our own fire, I spurred my horse over the em bankment, and very soon had discharged all the five charges of my revolver at the foe. We heard later A WELCOME DRAUGHT. 43 that few of the occupants of the train had escaped unhurt ; the greater part were either killed or severely wounded. I reproached myself afterwards with having so given the reins to my passion ; but after all I only acted in obedience to orders and the requirements of war. After having done as much injury as we could to the railroad, we proceeded on our march, whilst the last beams of the sun lighted up the scene of destruction. It had been a hard ride and a hard day s work, and my parched tongue was cleaving to the roof of my mouth, when one of our men galloped up to me, and held out a bottle of champagne, saying, " Cap tain, you did pretty hot work to-day. I got this bottle of champagne for you out of M Clellan s wag gon. It will do you good." Never in my life have I enjoyed a bottle of wine so much. Late in the evening a baggage -train and two sutler s waggons fell into our hands, and we took possession of a large quantity of luxuries, such as pickles, oysters, pre served fruits, oranges, lemons, and cigars. About ten o clock we had an hour s rest to feed our horses, and then rode on all the night through towards the Chickahominy Eiver, which we reached at five o clock in the morning. From the reports we had received we expected to find little difficulty in fording the stream, but who can describe our as- 44 PASSAGE OF THE CHICKAHOMINY. tonisliment at finding it so swollen by the rain which had fallen in the mountains during the past twenty- four hours that the water was more than fifteen feet deep ! At the same time our rear-guard announced that a whole division of the enemy was on our track. Every one felt the weight of the danger that threatened us, every one looked with anxiety towards our leader, who, with the greatest pos sible calmness and coolness, gave his orders and made his arrangements. Two regiments and two pieces of horse-artillery were ordered, in case of an attack, to cover our retreat ; whilst all the other available men were dismounted, some of them being employed to build bridges, the others to swim the river with the horses. A bridge for foot-passengers was hastily constructed across the stream, which was about ninety feet in breadth, and the saddles, &c., were carried over it. All the swimmers took the unsaddled horses through the river, some riding them, others swimming by their side, with one hand holding the mane and the other directing the horse. This last expedient I thought the best, and in this manner I took sixty-five horses myself through the angry torrent. After about four hours work a second bridge for the artillery was completed, and more than half the horses had reached the other side of the river ; also the prisoners, about five hundred in RETURN TO OUR LINES. 45 number, and hundreds of captured horses and mules. The first cannon was drawn by the soldiers across the bridge, which, standing the test well, the second soon followed, and then the reserve regiments. To wards noon all were in safety on the other bank, General Stuart being the last man to cross the bridge, which we then destroyed. Hitherto I had had no sensation of fatigue, but after this hard work in the water I felt it severely in all my limbs, and we had still to march the remainder of the day and all the night before we could rest in security. Both horses and men performed wonders during this expedition. We were in the saddle almost uninterruptedly for two days and two nights, fighting for a considerable part of the time, and for ten miles working our way through the swamps of the Chickahominy, which had been hitherto considered impassable. On the morning of the loth we arrived safely within our lines, and bivouacked about six miles from Eichmond. As soon as I had attended to my horse, who had carried me nobly through the severe fatigue, I fell fast asleep, and so continued during the whole day and night. We had been wonderfully successful in our expedition, having made a wide circuit through the enemy s immense army, and thoroughly acquainted ourselves with its position, 46 RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION. which had been our chief object. At the same time, we had destroyed the enemy s communication, burned property to the amount of millions, cap tured hundreds of prisoners, horses, and mules, and put the whole Federal army in fear and consternation. We were warmly greeted everywhere on our re turn, and every sort of honour was paid to General Stuart s name. This ovation was extended to officers and men, and wherever any one who had taken part in this famous expedition was seen, he was besieged with questions, gazed at as a hero, and entreated to relate his own adventures and the story of the ride. The Eichmond press teemed with praises of Gene ral Stuart and his followers, and even the journals of New York did not fail to render homage to the con ception and execution of this bold enterprise. I had been very fortunate during the expedition in rendering services of various kinds to General Stuart, which obtained his cordial recognition in the Official Report, and in this manner secured for me at once a position in the Confederate army.* A quiet time now followed at headquarters. Both * I trust I may be pardoned for introducing here that passage in the .Report which refers to the part 1 took in the expedition. General Stuart says : " Amongst those who rendered efficient services in this expedi tion I cannot forget to mention Heros Von Borcke, formerly of the Prussian Brandenburg Dragoons, who distinguished himself BEAUTY OF THE WEATHER. 47 horses and men needed rest after exertions so long continued and fatiguing. The weather was glorious, and all nature had put on the full beauty of spring. Around the house which we inhabited white and red roses bloomed in sweet profusion, covering and climb ing over the walls, and the wild honeysuckle added its fragrance to that of hundreds of magnolias blos soming in the neighbouring swamp. In the fierce heats of June no refreshment could be more delicious than that afforded by the shade and perfume that dwelt along the cool densely-wooded morass, as, in our rides about the camp, we frequently crossed the small tributary rivulets, and let our horses drink of the dark, clear water flowing over the pebbly bottom. My relations with General Stuart had now become of a most friendly and intimate character. The greater part of my time was spent in his company. In this manner I became acquainted with his amiable and accomplished young wife, and his two bright- eyed little children, Flora and Jemmy, five and three years of age respectively, whose tender affections I was not long in securing. Mrs Stuart, during a con siderable period of the war, lived from time to time at her husband s headquarters, as they might be by his gallantry, and won the admiration of all who witnessed his bravery and his military conduct during the expedition. He highly deserves promotion." 48 GENERAL STUART S FAMILY. established at a point more or less safe and access ible ; and I do not remember that I have ever seen a more interesting family circle than they presented, when, after a long ride or hazardous reconnaissance, General Stuart would seem to forget, for a brief interval, the dangers and duties of his exciting life in the enjoyment of his domestic happiness. The bold rider and dashing swordsman playing with his children, or listening to his wife as she sang him a ballad, was a picture the soft lights of which were in effective and pleasing contrast with the Eembrandt shadows of the dark wood and the rude warriors that lay there. General Stuart had married a daughter of Colonel Philip St George Cooke, of the U.S. Dragoons, a Virginian by birth, and West-Pointer by military education, who had remained in the Federal service, and was now making war upon his native State as a brigadier-general of President Lincoln s appointment. On several occasions, during the campaigns in Virgi nia, General Stuart came very near making a prisoner of his father-in-law ; and I believe it would have given him greater satisfaction to send General Cooke under escort to Eichmond than to capture the mighty M Clellan himself. The military family of General Stuart consisted of fourteen or fifteen high-spirited young fellows, boon companions in the bivouac, and excellent soldiers in RECEIVE MY FIRST COMMISSION. 49 the fight, of whom, alas ! seven were afterwards killed in battle, three received honourable and dangerous wounds, the effects of which will follow them through life, and two were carried off by the enemy to languish in loathsome Northern prisons. It was, indeed, a hazardous service upon which we had entered ; but little disturbed were we by a thought of the peril, or if such a thought ever intruded upon us, it was only to unite together in closer friendship the sharers of a common destiny. On the morning of the 20th June, General Stuart, with a significant smile, gave me his official report of the Pamunkey expedition to carry to the Secretary of War, General Earidolph. I soon perceived the mean ing of this smile when the commission of captain in the Confederate Cavalry was delivered to me by the Secretary, with the most flattering expressions re specting my conduct. Full of gratitude, I returned to headquarters with a sense of hearty satisfaction such as I had not known for a long time. We were not, however, to rest many days at headquarters on the laurels of the Pamunkey expedition. During the night of the 25th there came again to us marching orders : before midnight all were in readiness ; but as there was no moon, the darkness detained us till the morning, when the rising sun found us in the saddle, fresh and eager for the performance VOL. I. D 50 AGAIN PREPARE FOR THE FIELD. of whatever duties the day might impose. Events of the greatest military significance were on the wing events on which the eyes of the world were to be fixed, and by which the genius of more than one commander was to be determined events whose place in history will for ever remain undisturbed by the unhappy issue of the American War. CHAPTER III. THE BATTLE OF MECHANICSVILLE THE BATTLE OF COAL HARBOUR OR GAINES MILL RIDE OVER THE BATTLE FIELD SUCCESS AT THE WHITE HOUSE REFLECTIONS ON THE BATTLES BEFORE RICHMOND. THE real importance of the Pamunkey expedition, in giving General Lee a perfect insight into the position of the army of M Clellan, now manifested itself in the most brilliant light. As the Federal Com- mander-in-Chief had fortified himself most strongly on his right wing, which rested on the small village of Mechanicsville, five miles north-east of Bichmond, General Jackson had been ordered with his army from the valley of the Shenandoah, numbering be tween 25,000 and 30,000 men, to fall upon the enemy s right flank, and, turning it, to give Lee the opportunity for a general attack. General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, known alike to friends and foes as " Stonewall," from the steadiness and rock-like firmness of front which his command always pre sented to the enemy, had come up by rapid marches, 52 COMMENCEMENT OF THE BATTLE. without the enemy s knowledge, to execute this order. General Stuart s cavalry command and one division of infantry were sent to strengthen him, and this was the beginning of the sanguinary and to us successful seven days fighting before Eichmond. During the night of the 26th we arrived at the camps of Jackson s famous soldiers, which had been pitched near Ashland, a station on the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad, and were greeted by them with loud cheers. After a short period of repose we were again in the saddle. General Stuart had received directions from General Jackson to cover his left flank, so we marched with great caution, sending out numerous patrols and recon noitring detachments. Our march w^as directed towards Mechanicsville, where the enemy s right wing rested, as I have said, on strong fortifications. With the exception of encounters with small patrols, we saw little of the enemy until five o clock in the afternoon, when Jackson s vanguard attacked them, and was soon engaged in a sharp skirmish. At the same time the distant thunder of cannon was sound ing over from Mechanicsville, where Longstreet had attacked the enemy in their strong position. Jackson at once brought up his troops with his usual celerity of movement, and towards six o clock the battle was at its height. RECONNOITRING;. 53 Our cavalry was in reserve, and as we had reason to fear an attack on the left flank, General Stuart despatched me with a small body of men on a reconnoitring expedition, which was so far successful that, after about half an hour s ride, we came upon a strong detachment of the enemy s cavalry, who instantly set to work to chase us. We returned at a hard gallop, the enemy behind us in hot pursuit. General Stuart, perceiving this, placed two pieces of horse-artillery in the road, which, as soon as we had passed them, greeted the enemy with grape-shot. This created extreme confusion among our pursuers; they left their dead and wounded behind them, and took to immediate flight, followed by one of our regiments. Meanwhile the battle was going in our favour ; the enemy were driven from one position to another, and by ten o clock at night were retreating. We encamped for the remainder of the night upon the battle-field, and rose with the earliest beams of the sun. 27th June 1862. In the immediate neighbour hood of Coal Harbour, a small collection of houses some fifteen miles distant from Eichmond and ten or twelve miles east of Mechanicsville, the enemy, to the number of 60,000 men, had taken a new position, strengthened by natural as well as artificial fortifica- * tions. Jackson had with him in all, including his 54 THE FEDERAL LANCERS. reinforcements, about 40,000 men, every one of whom followed with enthusiasm and entire con fidence their beloved, admired leader. Our cavalry force occupied its old position on the left flank of our army, and during the forenoon of the 27th had several encounters with the enemy s horse, all which, as was usual at that time, terminated in our favour. One of these encounters, an affair of a few minutes, was with a newly-organised regiment of Federal Lancers. They stood 300 yards from us in line of battle, and presented, with their glittering lances, from the point of each of which fluttered a red-and-white pennon, and their fresh, well-fitting blue uniforms turned up with yellow, a fine martial appearance. One of our regiments was immediately ordered to attack them ; but before our Virginia horsemen got within fifty yards of their line, this magnificent regiment, which had doubtless excited the liveliest admiration in the Northern cities on its way to the seat of war, turned tail and fled in disorder, strewing the whole line of their retreat with their picturesque but inconvenient arms. The entire skirmish, if such it may be called, was over in less time than is required to record it ; and I do not believe that out of the whole body of 700 men more than twenty retained their lances. Their sudden FEARFUL ARTILLERY-FIRE. 55 and total discomfiture furnished a striking proof of the fact that this weapon, formidable enough in the hand of one accustomed to wield it, is a downright absurdity and encumbrance to the inexperienced. About two o clock in the afternoon the battle became general along the lines, and at three o clock raged in its full fury. The fire of musketry rolled continuously, and more than 150 howitzers and Napoleon and Parrot guns opened all around us, and united in one incessant roar. The ground being not favourable for cavalry operations, we occupied a place on the left wing of the line of battle, but were nearly all day under fire of the enemy s cannon. General Stuart, accompanied by his Staff and personal escort, pressed forward with his two batteries of horse-artillery, which, under the command of my gallant friend John Pelham, soon did most admirable execution. The enemy at once con centrated the fire of five batteries on this point, and every kind of missile hurtled heavily through the smoky air, spreading de.ath and destruction on all sides. I had many a hot ride during the afternoon through this tempest of shot and shell, and it appears now almost incomprehensible that I escaped unin jured. It was about five o clock when General Stuart re turned with us to his cavalry, which had been, and 56 STEADINESS UNDER FIRE. were still, suffering severely from the fire of a battery that had been boldly pressed forward to a favourable position, and kept thundering down on our much-ex posed horsemen with rapid and terrible discharges. Just as we were galloping along the line, the enemy opened upon us with grape and canister, and our men began to waver a little, the ranks getting into some confusion. At this moment General Stuart, who had to ride a few hundred yards farther to meet Colonel Fitz Lee, turned round to me, saying, "Captain, I wish you to remain here with my Staff and escort until I come back, to give a good example to the men." So we had to stand for many minutes in this diabolical fire of canister, which came rattling along the hard dry ground, or howled over us right and left a pretty severe trial It requires but little courage to attack the enemy, or even to ride about compos edly under fire, in comparison with what is demanded to sit quietly in face of several batteries, from which, with every momentary puff of smoke from the mouths of the guns, one may reasonably expect the messen ger of death. A shell which exploded directly over our heads tore nearly to pieces the captain of the squadron nearest to me, with whom I had just been talking, and killed or wounded several of the men. But our example had a telling effect ; the ranks closed up and remained in good order until the command was LUDICROUS EPISODES. 57 given, and the long line of horsemen, soon in rapid trot, disappeared behind a range of friendly hills. General Stuart and Staff now galloped forward again to our artillery, which in the mean time had lost many men and horses, but was still answering with the greatest energy the galling fire of the nume rous batteries of the enemy. Just at this time a little incident occurred, which, in the very carnival of death, provoked our hearty laughter. One of our Staff-officers, Captain , whom we had often joked about the nimble and successful manner in which he dodged the shells of the enemy, and who had this day again made the politest obeisance to their mis siles, annoyed at our raillery, had declared that he would never again bow at their approach, and was sitting with the utmost gravity bolt-upright in the saddle, when a 12 - pounder solid shot screamed through the air only a few feet over his head. Down went the head not merely to the saddle, but, with the body to which it was still securely attached, to the earth, amidst the convulsive shouts of his com rades and the cannoneers. Another incident which we witnessed about the same time, produced no less merriment amid the fury of the battle. A wounded man was borne along by two of his comrades, his limbs hanging down motionless and his head dangling about as if life was nearly extinct. The fire of the 58 A NARROW ESCAPE. enemy was still murderous, and one of the carriers, struck by a musket-ball, fell to the ground, dropping his charge, who, seeing himself in great danger, sud denly revived, and, jumping up, took to his heels with the most surprising agility. The explosive laughter which followed him in his rapid flight all along our lines absolutely drowned for a few moments the tumult and hurly-burly of the engagement. About six o clock in the evening I was sent by General Stuart to order to the front two squadrons of our Georgia regiment to attack one of the Federal batteries which, without proper support, had been making a very bold advance. The enemy had brought up to the distant heights twenty pieces of rifled ordnance, which, by undue elevation, firing too high for the effect they desired, were playing upon an open space of ground over which I had to ride. The fire was so terrific that I found one of our reserve batteries, not actively engaged at the mo ment, entirely deserted by its gunners, who had sought protection with the horses in a deep ravine, and who cried out to me to dismount and join them, or certain death must be my fate. I pushed on, and reached my destination in safety ; but galloping back I felt a stunning blow across the spine, and at the same moment my horse rolled over with me. I was confident the animal had been struck by a can- OUR VICTORY AND ITS RESULTS. 59 non-ball ; but, to my great surprise, I was not able to discover any wound. As I was myself unhurt, I remounted my brave animal, and continued my way. A solid shot had passed close to my horse s back, and the current of air set in motion by its passage had knocked over both horse and rider. Afterwards, during the war, I witnessed many similar cases of prostration of men and animals by " windage." At seven o clock in the evening the battle had taken a most favourable turn for our arms. At this time the enemy, who had offered throughout the day the most obstinate resistance, intrenched in very strong positions, and attacking us in the centre with 25,000 regular troops, the {Lite of M Clellan s army, began slowly to give way before the impetuous valour of our men, who drove these veterans from one intrenchment to another, until, at eight P.M., they were in full retreat, and the victory was ours. Thousands of prisoners, among whom were two generals, several colonels, and many inferior officers, a large number of field-pieces, and many flags, fell into our hands. General Stuart, with his cavalry, was immediately sent in pursuit of the enemy s fly ing columns, which we chased for nearly five miles, until the darkness of the night stopped our further progress. Eeturning, we were compelled to ride with great caution, for the field was strewn with 60 VISIT FROM JACKSON. wounded men, many of whom had crept to the edge of the highroad to get within reach of the ambu lances. There is no sadder sight than that of a battle-field after the conflict is over. Happily, night at this moment veiled from us its full horrors ; but there was an overwhelming sense of utter hopeless ness in riding among so many poor fellows, whom one would have so much liked to assist, even with the " cup of cold water," brave fellows, groaning in their agony, and calling upon every passer-by for help with an entire consciousness on our part of the fearful aggregate of the misery, and, alas ! of the little we could do for its alleviation. We encamped upon the field of battle. About midnight I felt myself touched on the shoulder ; and when, grasping the hilt of my sword, I abruptly de manded who was there, a mild voice answered me, " General Jackson." The great Confederate leader was in search of General Stuart. Stuart, who slept on my right, was immediately aroused ; and Jackson, accepting my invitation so to do, sat down on my blankets by his side. I left them alone, those grand warriors, in their midnight council, and wandered about, meditating on the stirring events of the day. I was deeply impressed by the blackness of the night and the profound stillness of the slumbering camp. Here and there a camp-fire shed a red glow ESCORTING PRISONERS. 61 around, and the stillness was only too mournfully interrupted by the groans of wounded and dying men, who, not many hours before, had been full of health and hope. At the early dawn of morning, on the 28th of June, all was in motion again, as General Stuart had received orders to proceed at once with his cavalry to the White House on the Pamunkey river, where immense supplies for M Clellan s army had been collected. I was exceedingly disappointed, when, ordering my horse to be saddled, my mulatto servant reported that my brave chestnut was unable to rise, in consequence of the injuries sustained by the heavy contusion of the previous day injuries from which it never recovered. I had no choice, there fore, but to remain behind until I could procure another animal. But I was not idle. Acting in concert with Captain Fitzhugh, of General Stuart s Staff, and assisted by a dozen couriers, I employed myself in collecting and placing under guard the prisoners that were still coming in by fifties and hundreds from every part of the extensive battle field. Among these prisoners was a major of artillery, who had served with General Stuart in the old regular army of the United States, and who had been acquainted with Captain Fitzhugh before the war. He was a most intelligent and agreeable man, 62 A RIDE OVER THE BATTLE-FIELD. but seemed greatly annoyed by his capture. After some hesitation, however, he accepted the rude hospitality of our little camp, and shared our meagre breakfast, consisting of soup and hard bread. He talked very sensibly of the war and of the recent battle, and expressed his great admiration for Lee, Jackson, and Stuart. About 10 A.M. I was able to turn the prisoners over to one of Jackson s officers; and then, mounting a horse which was kindly offered me by one of our couriers, I set out for a ride over the field of the fight. It was, indeed, a sad and cruel spectacle. Death had raged fearfully in many places, especially where our troops had been compelled to storm the strong intrenchments of the enemy. On some of these perilous slopes the dead bodies might be seen piled three or four deep. I was struck here by the piteous contrast presented by the bodies of two of our dead which were lying side by side. I can never forget the sight ; I can see them now one a man of more than fifty, who had been shot through the head, and whose silvery white hair was dabbled in his blood ; the other, next him, a lad of sixteen, whose frank face was lighted up by clustering fair hair, and whose small hands were crossed over his heart, where the enemy s bullet had struck him. Among Jackson s men on the previous day I had AN ALLEGED BAYONET-FIGHT. 63 looked with astonishment at a soldier from Missis sippi a perfect giant, whose appearance had at tracted the more attention from a vest of bear-skin that he wore. Here among the dead I found him again, with a small hole in the breast, which had been sufficient to make an end at once of all his strength and vigour. Many stories had been recited in camp about a tremendous bayonet-fight, hand to hand, during the battle, between our Texans and the New York Zouaves, and it was said that two of these deter mined antagonists had pierced each other through and through with their formidable and fatal weapons, and that their dead bodies had been found standing erect in the very attitude in which each had received his death -wound. Curiosity carried me to the spot. An obstinate struggle had indeed taken place there between the troops named, which had ended in the utter annihilation of the much- vaunted Zouaves, whose bodies, dressed in flashy red uniforms, were scattered about all over the ground like the scarlet poppies in a corn-field ; but the never-erring bullet of the famous Texan marksmen had brought them down, not the bayonet. I carefully examined many of the corpses, and found only three or four with bayonet-wounds, and these had been received evi dently after the bullets. These accounts of bayonet- 64 LOSE OUR WAY. fights are current after every general engagement, and are frequently embodied in subsequent "his tories," so called ; but as far as my experience goes, recalling all the battles in which I have borne a part, bayonet-fights rarely if ever occur, and exist only in the imagination. About mid-day I returned to our encampment, where I found, to my great delight, a fresh horse that Captain Fitzhugh had procured for me, and a company of our cavalry which was just starting to join our comrades at the White House. As the officer in command pretended to know the way very well, I made up my mind at once to join them ; and after a march of more than six hours, discovered, to my intense disgust, that the captain had missed his road completely. As night was now approaching, and squads of the enemy s cavalry were reported in every direction, nothing was left to us but to return to our starting-point, which we reached again about midnight. Our return not a little surprised and annoyed Captain Fitzhugh, who, in the mean time, had received intelligence from General Stuart, and orders for me to join him on the following morning. During our march back to camp, passing one of our picket-posts, we found our men there in great excitement, and were informed by them that the enemy had poisoned all the wells and springs in the RUMOUR OF POISONED WELLS. 65 neighbourhood, iii consequence of which several of their number were in a dying condition. Three or four, indeed, were very bad ; but although I do not love the Yankees, I am quite sure they were entirely innocent of this. The sufferers had been made ill by the too abundant use of bad apple brandy, which will kill anybody. The first streak of day of the 29th found us once more in the saddle, inarching gaily along through the dense green forests of oak and hickory. We had a long ride before us, and as we had information from Stuart that active work was to be done, we hastened forward as rapidly as possible. The dis tant thunder of cannon soon announced to us that the fight had opened ; but eagerly as we pushed our horses, it was nearly twelve o clock when we reached a plateau about two miles from the White House, only to learn that the battle was over. At the foot of this plateau extended, about two miles in breadth, and in length as far as the eye could reach, the green fertile valley of the Pamunkey, whose yellow waters flowed directly past the "plantation," or estate, of the White House, the property of our Colonel, Wil liam H. F. Lee. This wide verdant flat was covered with thousands of tents and storehouses, and formed the main depot of the Federal army, numbering, be fore the late battles, at least 150,000 men. The 66 SCENE FROM THE HEIGHTS. enemy s cavalry, forced to fly by the celerity of Stuart s attack, had, in their rapid retreat, set fire to all the principal buildings ; and from more than a hundred different points vast volumes of smoke were rising in the air, while the stately mansion of Colonel Lee was wreathed in flames. All over the field our horsemen were busy as ants, here rescuing from destruction quantities of valuable provisions, there enjoying luxuries of which they had long been deprived, that were scattered in the greatest profu sion on every hand. I found General Stuart on the very brink of the Pamunkey, where he had estab lished his headquarters in a delightfully cool spot, beneath the boughs of a gigantic plantain, regaling himself with iced lemonade, which he shared with me, and which fell upon my tongue like nectar. Ice, lemons, crushed sugar, and many other dainties and delicacies, which we knew only by recollection, were heaped around us in large piles, for the benefit of any one who would reach out his hand to take them. The General was in excellent spirits, and received me most cordially, losing no time in recounting to me the splendid results of his expedition. He had broken the enemy s cavalry by his first attack, taken many prisoners, captured untold wealth of spoil, and, what amused and delighted him most of all, disabled and driven off a Federal gunboat by the fire of his VAST DESTRUCTION OF STOKES. 67 dismounted sharpshooters and two pieces of horse- artillery. After a few minutes rest, my curiosity led me through the burning encampment. Never in my life had I seen such enormous quantities of commis sary stores never had I supposed that an army of invasion would voluntarily encumber itself with such an incalculable amount of useless luxuries. Hun dreds of boxes of oranges and lemons were piled up together, many of which, broken, sent the golden fruit rolling all over the ground. Great pyramids of barrels of white and brown sugar, and of salt fish, and eggs packed in salt, were blazing on all sides. One of the burning barrels of eggs we knocked open, and found its contents roasted d merveille, which gave us, with other edibles within easy reach, such a repast as we had not enjoyed for many months. Not far from us, as we thus feasted, were little mountains of hams of bacon, and boxes of arms, uniforms, and equipments for more than 10,000 men. An equal number of the latter we discovered in the river, as well as two transports, laden with whisky and other liquors, which had been sunk by the enemy on our approach, but which we raised and secured with little difficulty. A large number of railway carriages and new locomotive engines, and a pontoon train, also fell into our hands. In strolling through the more distant camps, I had the good fortune to secure 68 EMBALMING. a fine horse which had been left behind by his Fede ral owner in the hurry of his departure ; but I lost my prize very soon afterwards. In one of the houses near by I discovered the body of a handsome young man, an officer, who had been killed in one of the late battles. The body had been so skilfully embalmed that one could almost believe the poor fellow only slept. I set a guard over the corpse to protect it from casual injury, and it was soon afterwards delivered to the relatives of the deceased. The report was circulated in camp, and obtained some credence, that it was one of the French princes of the Orleans family, who were then serving on the Staff of General M Clellan, and had taken part in the recent engagements ; but this story was never believed by General Stuart or myself. Late at night I returned exceedingly weary to camp, to find such rest as the myriads of musquitoes would allow me. The following day the work of saving, and destroy ing what could not be saved, out of the spoils at the White House, was continued, and then we moved off to join the army of General Lee, at that moment pur suing the enemy on his retreat to Harrison s Landing, on James river. We left behind one regiment as a guard over the property, estimated at millions of dollars in value, which we had collected to be trans- CONTINUED PURSUIT OF THE ENEMY. 69 ported to Kichmond and the military depots of our army. While the operations I have just detailed had been going on under Stuart at the White House, General Lee had been very active engaging the enemy and driving him further back every day. That we might regain the main body as speedily as possible, we marched for the remainder of the day without stopping in the hot sun, and encamped at nightfall upon the exact spot on the Chickahominy where, a few weeks before, we had made so narrow an escape. At daybreak next morning we received orders to move as rapidly as we might eight miles higher up the river, to ford it in the neighbourhood of Bottom s Bridge, and, falling upon the flank of the Federal army, to intercept its hasty retreat ; but upon reaching this point we received counter orders, as the Federal army had already passed, and we rode back in full gallop to Forge Bridge, our starting- point. Here we found that the enemy, anticipating our movement, had posted artillery and sharpshooters in advantageous position on the river-bank, and we were accordingly received with a very determined resistance. Soon, however, Pelham came up with his horse-artillery, and, by a well-directed fire, opened a passage for us. The enemy retreated in precipita tion, leaving their dead and wounded all along the course of their flight, and we were able to make but 70 CHARGING A CHERRY-TREE. a very few prisoners. The sun was now pouring down with intense fervour, and as our horses were wellnigh exhausted with our rapid marching and counter-marching, we were compelled to take a few hours rest on the roadside. We lay down in a corner of the fence beneath the shade of some cherry-trees hanging full of their delicious fruit, the "bunches unfortunately just a little too high to serve our parched mouths with grateful refreshment. Stuart and I were standing on the highest rail of the fence, trying with difficulty to pluck some of the cherries, when he laughingly said to me, " Captain, you charge the Yankees so well, why do you not attack this cherry-tree and bring it down ? " Without hesitation I jumped from my elevated position, grasping the higher part of the trunk, and breaking down the tree, amid the loud cheers and laughter of the Staff and the soldiers around, who finished the spoil, now so easily to be gathered, in an incredibly short time. In the midst of our mirth over the fallen cherry- tree, we were interrupted by the heavy boom of artillery brought to us from the heights of Malvern Hill, where a sanguinary battle had just begun, and we were again ordered into the saddle. From the weary condition of our horses, however, our march in the direction of the cannonade was but a slow one ; and it was not until late in the evening that BATTLE OF MALVERN HILL. 71 we arrived upon the field of action, where the fate of the day had already been decided, the enemy having retreated under cover of his gunboats on James river. For the first time at Malvern Hill, in the progress of the American war, was it satisfactorily shown how important in a battle is the concen tration of a large number of pieces of artillery upon one point ; and the army of General M Clellan was only saved from utter destruction by sixty guns, which, being very favourably posted in his centre, poured dismay and death into our attacking columns. The effect was more disastrous than had been before produced by artillery. In this battle our losses were very heavy, and I may say that the victory was ours only from the ignorance of our position on the part of the enemy, who retreated exactly at the moment when he had gained the most important success. As this battle was the last of the famous seven days fighting before Eichmond, I may be allowed to submit a very few remarks in review of the memor able struggle and its brilliant results. The fight began on the 26th June at Mechanics ville, and ended on the 2d July after Malvern Hill. M Clellan, whose lines extended across the Chickahominy in a semicircle around Eichmond, from the James river to the strong position of Mechanicsville, had in the first two days of the contest been completely whipped 72 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS MOVEMENTS. by Jackson on the right, and that portion of his army north of the Chickahominy had been driven to the south side, where the subsequent engagements of Eraser s Farm on the 29th, Willis s Church on the 30th, and, last of all, Malvern Hill, drove him in rapid retreat to his unassailable place of refuge at Westover, on the James river. At this point a large flotilla of gunboats protected him from any further attack on our part, and numerous transports supplied him with abundant provisions} .ammunition, and re inforcements. M Clellan s retreat was indeed mas terly, and too much credit cannot be paid him for the skill with which he managed to hold his own, and check the advance of our victorious troops at Malvern Hill. His final success, however, in saving his army, was due to the inexcusable tardiness and disobedience of orders displayed by some of our Confederate generals. The fault was certainly not in General Lee s dispositions. Our whole loss in killed and wounded was about 9000 men that of the enemy amounted to 16,500, besides several thousand prisoners. The amount of artillery and ammunition, and more especially of small-arms, equipments, and commissary stores, that fell into our hands, was enormous. CHAPTER IV. RIDE TO RICHMOND EXPEDITION ON THE JAMES RIVER A PRISONER OF THE NINTH VIRGINIA CAVALRY FISHING AND SHOOTING SUNDAY IN CAMP HEADQUARTERS AT HANOVER COURT-HOUSE CAMP SCENES FIGHTS AND RE CONNAISSANCES RATTLESNAKE AND BULL-FROG DEPART URE FROM DUNDEE. DURING the night which followed the battle of Malvern Hill, we encamped in the orchard of a small farmhouse near the field, but our repose was made exceedingly uncomfortable by heavy showers of rain following one another in rapid succession until the dawn. Profiting by the darkness of the night and the disturbance created by the storm, a spy, who had been captured by some of our men, and who had been condemned to be hanged the next morning, contrived to make his escape. I was rather glad of it. He was an old man of more than sixty, and I had seen him riding along with us all the day on a miserable mule, his hands tied behind him, with such a terrified expression upon his ashy 74 A RIDE TO RICHMOND. features, that I regarded the poor sinner as suffi ciently punished by the agony he had already un dergone. The morning opened heavily with rain, and I rose shivering from the damp ground to attend on General Stuart, from whom I received orders to ride at once into Eichmond for the purpose of executing some important duties there. As my old grey was very nearly broken down by hard riding, and I might hope to exchange him in Eichmond, my captured horse having been lost in the rapidity of our recent movements and as, in all probability, fighting was not to be renewed I started gladly upon this expedition. My ride took me over the battle-field and along a portion of the line of the enemy s former retreat. I looked with astonishment at the effect of the heavy artillery-fire of the enemy upon some portions of the forest. Hundreds of the largest trees were riven and shattered, and lay in fragments around, as if all the thunderbolts of heaven had been hurled against them ; and in many places the fallen trunks and branches barricaded the road so that it was difficult to get along at all. For miles the ground was thickly strewn with muskets, knapsacks, blankets, and other equipments that had been thrown away in their flight by the soldiers of the retreating Federal army. It was nearly night when I reached Eichmond. Wet, cold, and weary, I FEELING IN THE CITY. 75 rode immediately to the hotel and sought my bed a luxury which no one can thoroughly appreciate until he has long been deprived of it, and compelled as I had been for several nights to sleep in his clothes on the hard ground. The Spots wood Hotel at this time was crowded with guests, among whom, a neighbour of my own, was no less distinguished a person than a Federal General, M Call, who had been taken prisoner in one of the recent battles. As might naturally have been ex pected, the joy of the people of Richmond was very great at the deliverance of their city from the hands of the enemy ; but they took their good fortune with a very becoming composure, and spoke and acted just as if, in their judgment, with such an army as that of General Lee, under such commanders, between them and the invading force, the struggle for the Con federate capital could have had no other result. No powder was wasted in salutes over the victory, no bonfires blazed, no windows were illuminated, and the general appearance of Eichmond was in all respects unchanged from what it had been a month before. My business in Richmond was speedily transacted, and the following day, having procured an excellent horse, I set out with fresh courage and spirits to re join my General. Our army in the mean time had been pushed forward towards the James river, being 76 RETURN TO HEADQUARTERS. close upon the enemy s formidable positions at West- over ; and as I rode along, I heard from time to time the heavy ordnance of the gunboats, which threw their tremendous projectiles wherever the grey uni forms came in sight. Generals E. E. Lee, Longstreet, and Stuart had established their headquarters to gether in the extensive farmyard of a Mr Phillips, which spot I reached late in the evening, after a long and dusty ride. Here for a few days we enjoyed rest and comparative quiet. Our generals were often in council of war, undecided whether or not to attack the enemy. On the morning of the 6th, General Stuart removed his headquarters about two miles lower down the river to the plantation of a Mr C., old friends of ours, where we were received, especially by the ladies, with great kindness and enthusiasm. About dusk on the 6th the General started with two of our regiments, the 4th and the 9th, and six pieces of our horse-artillery, to lay an ambush for the Federal gunboats, which every night came steaming up the river with fresh troops and supplies for their army. Having been detained by some duty at headquarters, I left about an hour later than the column, quite alone, and had on my ride a little adventure which gave rise to a great deal of merriment at my expense. I had been informed by one of our patrols that de tachments of the enemy s cavalry had been seen in AN AMUSING CAPTURE. 77 the neighbourhood, and I had therefore moved on with no little vigilance and circumspection. It was a beautiful night, the air was full of the fragrance of the wild -flowers and forest-blossoms, and myriads of fire-flies glittered in the surrounding darkness. Sud denly, through the profound stillness of the night, there struck upon my quick ear the sound of hoofs upon my right hand, and out of a small dark bridle path on the side of the road there emerged a horse man, who wore, as well as I could distinguish, the Federal uniform. " Halt ! " said I. The stranger halted. " What is your regiment ?" " Eighth Illinois " (hostile cavalry). The answer had no sooner been given than, putting spurs to my horse, I rushed upon my antagonist, who, seeing my revolver levelled with uncomfortably accurate aim at his breast, surrendered himself without the least hesitation as my prisoner. As I was conducting my capture to the spot where the 9th Virginia Cavalry was stationed, I perceived that he Was riding an admirable horse, which I regard ed with infinite satisfaction as already my property. He entertained me on the way with many stories about the Yankee army, how long he had served in it, &c. &c. When we had reached our regiment, however, he came out suddenly in the new character of a member of the corps, a private in the ranks, who had replaced his own tattered Confederate uniform 78 A CRUEL JEST. with the uniform and cap of a captured Federal sol dier, and who had taken me, from my foreign accent, for a Federal officer. As he made this recital, not without a certain latent satire at my prowess in mak ing a prisoner of a private of the 9th Virginia Caval ry, 1 confess that, recalling his extreme terror at the moment of his surrender, I lost all patience with him, and again levelling my pistol at him, I gave him to understand that I would make short work of him at any future repetition of his jests. But I did not get my fine horse ; for upon turning over my prison er, whom I still supposed to be a Yankee, to Colonel Fitzhugh Lee, he recognised in him at once a man of his own command, who had most imprudently as sumed one of the captured Federal uniforms. This substitution of dress was unfortunately very often done by our men, and many a poor fellow has been killed by his own friends because he could not resist the temptation of discarding his dirty rags for a new blue coat and trousers. In addition to the loss of my captured horse, I was very much teased for my mistake, and General Stuart often laughingly asked me, " How many prisoners of the 9th Virginia have you taken lately ? " Pursuing my ride, after having disposed of the Confederate prisoner, I found General Stuart at a point upon the river-bank where Captain Stephen D. ATTACK ON TRANSPORTS. 79 Lee, who later distinguished himself as a general at Vicksburg and in the Western campaigns, had placed the six pieces of artillery in a very favourable posi tion. We had not long to wait before opening fire. The expected Yankee transports, five in number, soon came in sight, and passed us slowly not more than one hundred yards distant from our battery. Our pieces thundered all together, and kept up an inces sant discharge. The effect on the transports, which were densely crowded with Federal troops, cannot be described. We could distinctly hear our balls and shells crashing through the sides of the vessels, the cries of the wounded on board, and the confused ran dom commands of the officers. One of the smaller transports sank in a few minutes, the others escaped more or less injured. In a very short time, hearing the approach of a whole flotilla of gunboats, under very heavy pressure of steam, for the protection of the transports, we quickly limbered up, and were already a mile nearer to our encampment, when, to our amusement, the enemy, with his ponderous 100 -pounder guns, concentrated an appalling fire upon the point we had just left. During the next few days nothing disturbed the quiet of our camp, and on the 8th I had the pleasure of receiving from the Post-Quartermaster at Eich- mond a noble black horse to replace the chestnut 80 DEVASTATION OF THE COUNTRY. disabled in the battle of Coal Harbour an animal which, by its speed and magnificent jumping, saved my life several times during my later campaigns. It would be impossible to give an idea of the im poverishment and utter destitution of the country, which the presence of two immense armies had de prived of everything, and which the recent battles had devastated with fire. The sad and sickening evidences of the shock of arms were only too plainly visible on every side. Upon the numberless fester ing carcasses of horses and mules the sun poured down with a tropical blaze, while the air was also poisoned with the stench from human bodies that had been hastily buried but a few inches below the surface. For many miles around nothing could be procured to support life. I well recollect that Cap tain Stuart of our Staff and myself were digging for a whole day in the garden of a little farmhouse for a few miserable onions and diseased potatoes to ap pease our hunger. Such is the condition of a region of country, no matter how fertile and productive it may have been in former days, over which war has expended its fury. On the evening of the 9th we were suddenly brought to horse again by a fierce demonstration of the enemy, who drove in our pickets, but was re pulsed without much difficulty. On the 10th we AGAIN IN RICHMOND. 81 received information that General M Clellan had de termined to embark his army on his transports at Harrison s Landing, and at the same time orders to march to Hanover county, on the opposite side of Kichmond, to recruit our horses, and organise some better system of procuring forage and pro visions. Leaving the regiments behind us, General Stuart and I galloped off together along the road to Kich mond. On our way we stopped at the house of the Irish family, where, more than a month before, we had spent some anxious hours, on the occasion of our midnight ride to hold a rendezvous with the spy just previous to the Pamunkey expedition, and where we were now received with abundant chit-chat by the loquacious landlady, who supplied us with fresh milk and blackberries. It was late in the evening when we reached the city, where the General pressed me to accompany him in a visit to the President a pleasure which I was compelled to deny myself in consequence of the shabby condition of my garments. As we remained in town the whole of the next day, I took advantage of the opportunity to fit myself out with a full uniform of the newest gloss, consisting of a light grey frock-coat with buff facings, dark blue trousers, and a little black cocked-hat with sweeping ostrich plume, the regulation dress for staff-officers, VOL. I. F 82 CHANGE OF HEADQUARTERS. which is as picturesque as it is suitable for active service. On the morning of the 12th we set out for Hanover dounty, where our headquarters had been established upon the farm of a Mr Timberlake, near Atlee s Station, on the line of the Virginia Central Eailway. Mr Timberlake s house was situated in the midst of a forest of lofty oak and hickory trees, around which stretched fertile fields. The proprietor himself was a pleasant, jovial old gentleman, who had two sons in our cavalry ; and as he remitted no exertions to make us comfortable, we had really nothing to desire. On the 14th Mrs Stuart arrived at a neighbouring mansion, and as she had accepted the General s invita tion to share our camp dinner, I galloped over the faithful mulatto " Bob " following with a led horse to escort her to our headquarters. It was always a pleasure to me to ride with the Virginia ladies, who, with rare exceptions, are admirable horsewomen, to whom no fence is too high and no ditch too wide. Mrs Stuart was often with us, coming whenever we could look forward to a few days of inactivity. Her children were the pets of the whole camp ; and during those brief but frequent interludes of domesticity, we were all united together as members of one family. On the 17th we had a brigade drill and a review of our entire cavalry force, which demonstration was AN IMPROMPTU PARTY. 83 attended by a large number of spectators, principally the ladies of the neighbourhood, among whom General Stuart had many acquaintances and admirers, for he was always the hero and idol of the gentle sex. When the military performance was over, he gal loped around from carriage to carriage, presenting us in turn to the fair inmates, and inviting them to drive over and take a look at our camp, which was not more than a mile distant. As several families accepted the invitation, Captain Fitzhugh and myself were sent in advance to make suitable preparations for their reception. With Mr Timberlake s kind permission, assisted by a little army of negro ser vants, we plundered his house of its chairs and sofas, which were disposed in a semicircle beneath an immense tent-fly that had been among the spoils taken from the enemy at the White House ; and our hastily improvised al fresco drawing-room was quite complete and effective in its arrangements when the carriages arrived upon the ground. For refreshment we had cool fresh milk and ginger-cakes for the ladies, and the Virginia mint-julep for the gentlemen; animated talk alternated with patriotic songs on all sides, and our guests took away with them the impression that camp-life was not so bad after all. We occupied ourselves now chiefly with fishing and shooting, as had the red Indians of these woods 84 FISHING AND SHOOTING. and streams two hundred years ago. The Chicka- hominy afforded us abundance of perch and cat-fish, which were welcome additions to the supplies of our mess-table; but taking the fish was attended with many discomforts and difficulties. From the pecu liar formation of the river-banks, high and densely skirted with trees, we were forced to wade about in the shallow stream, where we were vigorously at tacked by the most voracious horse-leeches, which fastened themselves on our exposed legs in such numbers as to make it necessary to go ashore every five minutes to shake them off. The small hare of Virginia darted about in every direction in the fields and thickets ; but shooting the grey squirrel, which was quite new to me, afforded me the best sport ; and from the great agility of the animal, it was by no means so easy a matter as one might suppose. The foliage of the hickory, in which the grey squirrel has his favourite abode, is very dense, and the active little creature knows so well how to run along the opposite side of the limb from the gentleman with the gun, that one must be as much on the alert as his game to fire exactly at the moment when it is in sight and unprotected. The grey squirrel is smaller than the red or fox squirrel, and as it subsists princi pally on chestnuts and hickory-nuts, its meat is very delicate. I had some repugnance to eating them at AN ENGLISH VISITOR. 85 first, as disagreeably suggestive, in their appearance, of rats ; but I soon learned to appreciate the game, and it became one of my most highly valued dishes. On the 18th, about noon, as I had just returned from one of my little shooting expeditions, General Stuart having gone off to Pdchmond on duty, I found Captain Eitzhugh engaged in entertaining an English man, Lord Edward St Maur, who had given us the pleasure of being our guest for the day. As our mess supplies were limited, I was not a little concerned as to the materials for a dinner ; but William, our negro cook, hearing that I had two squirrels in my game- bag, undertook to make a pie of them, and did this so successfully that I had the satisfaction to find the pate highly relished by my lord, who said he had never tasted anything better in his life. On Sunday the 19th we had divine service in the camp. The officiating clergyman was the Kev. Mr Landstreet, chaplain of the 1st Virginia Cavalry, and the spot was an open place in the midst of the primi tive forest. I was deeply impressed by the peculiar solemnity of the scene. It was indeed a striking picture, hundreds of bearded warriors lying about on the grass, and listening with the utmost attention to the eloquent words of the preacher, beneath the green dome formed by the interlacing branches of the gigantic trees over their heads. 86 AT HANOVER COURT-HOUSE. On the 21st July we received orders again to re move our encampment, and the spot chosen for it was in the immediate neighbourhood of the Court house of the county of Hanover, which we reached the evening of that day. The Court-house building was erected in the year 1730, and any structure dat ing from this period is regarded in America as a very ancient and venerable edifice. Within its walls, in the palmy day of his imperial declamation, the great orator Patrick Henry, " the forest-born Demosthenes," had pleaded the celebrated " Parsons Cause " in a speech the traditions of which yet live freshly in Virginia. It is a small building of red brick, plea santly situated on a hill commanding a pretty view, several miles in extent, of fertile fields and dark-green woods, and a clear stream, which winds like a silvery thread through the distant valley. The Court-house and several offices belonging to it are surrounded by a shady enclosed grove of locust and plantain trees, about five acres in area. Here we established our headquarters. The cavalry regiments and horse- artillery were encamped in full view all around us nearly 8000 men, with their grazing horses, white tents, and waving battle-flags an animated panora ma of active military life. Here our position was one of great comfort and enjoyment. Our tents were all put up with some regard to regularity; our mess A RECONNAISSANCE IN FORCE. 87 arrangements were better ordered ; we made frequent visits to the houses of the neighbouring planters, and we might have dismissed the war and its hardships from our minds, had not the enemy, who already occupied Fredericksburg in heavy force, made it ne cessary for us, as a matter of proper precaution, to maintain an extended line of pickets. The occurrence of my birthday on the 23d was the occasion to me of a pleasant little surprise in the presentation of a beautiful bouquet and the congratu lations of my comrades on the Staff, and I had hoped to spend the day in social delights and dolce far niente; but about ten A.M. we received intelligence that the enemy, advancing in strength from Freder icksburg, had fallen, about fifteen miles distant, upon one of our squadrons on picket, dispersed it, and taken off with them a number of prisoners and horses. At twelve o clock we started in pursuit with three regiments, amounting to about 2000 men, and two pieces of artillery. We reached the scene about dusk, and found, to our great disappointment, that the enemy had taken the back track about mid-day, and that there was now no chance of overtaking them. But General Stuart, having proceeded so far, deter mined to extend his expedition to a more thorough reconnaissance, and accordingly encamped for the night upon the farm of a Mr Anderson, whence we 88 COMPELLED TO RETREAT. made an early departure on the following morning. When I came to mount my horse for the march, I found with infinite annoyance that my saddle-bags, containing articles of great value to me, had been stolen by one of the negro camp-followers, who were always lounging in large numbers about our encamp ments. But one soon becomes accustomed to these little personal losses in war. To-day you lose some thing of utility, to-morrow you take it back from the enemy with usury ; indeed, the whole of my equipments consisted of spoils taken from the Yankees. Our march was continued throughout the day on the 24th, and we arrived about dusk at a point ten miles from Fredericksburg, where we halted and fed our horses in a large clover-field. General Stuart threw forward his pickets with great caution, so that we might not be observed by the enemy, intending during the night to make a sudden at tack on Fredericksburg, in the hope of driving the Yankees out of the town, or at least of alarming the garrison. This enterprise, however, was not favoured by the elements. About eleven P.M. there burst upon us a tremendous thunderstorm, with such a deluging downpour of rain, that the Mataponi, with its four tributaries, the Ma, Ta, Po, and Ni, in our rear, which we had forded easily, must soon have A VIRGINIAN PARADISE. 89 become so much swollen as to make recrossing im possible. It was therefore necessary to start on a rapid retreat. The Indian name Mataponi is made up of four separate names of one syllable, as the river which bears this name is made up of the four several rivulets which become confluent at one point, and it furnishes us with a proof how practical the aboriginal inhabitants of America were in their no menclature. We managed to ford the last of these streams with difficulty, and arrived only in the after noon of the following day at our latest point of de parture, Mr Anderson s. Here we left our command to rest the fatigued men and horses, and Captain Blackford of our Staff and myself accompanied General Stuart upon a hand-car, propelled by two negroes, along the railroad directly to Hanover Court-house, which place we reached at sunset. A few days now passed in perfect tranquillity, and we had the pleasure of paying occasional visits to our friends in the neighbourhood, most frequently of all at the hospitable mansion of Dr P., known as Dundee, which was one of the most charming places in the fair land of the Old Dominion. The house is situated on an elevated point in the midst of a beau tiful oak grove which opens on the garden side, affording a lovely vista over richly-cultivated fields, with a blue range of hills for background in the far 90 A FIRE. distance. Around the house there was a profusion of flowers, and the entire locale was so sweet a para dise, that it was the highest of satisfactions to us soldiers, accustomed to the roar of cannon and images of death and carnage, to enjoy the serene quiet that reigned in its grounds and apartments, and the charming society of the family circle that dwelt there. On Sunday evening the 26th we were assembled as usual on the verandah, enjoying the coolness of the twilight hours, delicious after the fierce heats of the summer day, when suddenly our attention was attracted by flames issuing from the roof of one of the farm stables, about 500 yards distant. As most of the negroes were absent, paying their Sunday visits, or otherwise spending their weekly holiday, the lightly-built stables and the cattle in them were in imminent danger of destruction. Of course we eagerly hastened to the spot to render what aid we could in extinguishing the fire or saving the pro perty. After half an hour s hard work we succeeded in getting the fire under ; and though all of us, and myself especially, were more or less burned in the face and hands, we felt highly gratified to have ren dered some service to people who had shown us the most marked and constant kindness. General Stu art, who always had his joke, gave the ladies a most PROMOTIONS. 91 absurd and extravagant account of my individual exertions, declaring that he had seen me running out of the burning building with a mule under one arm and two little pigs under the other. On the 29th we had another brigade drill, which drew together a considerable number of spectators. The place was an extended level plain, very favour able for manoeuvres, and the whole drill was exe cuted with as much precision as would have been exhibited by regular troops, and afforded indeed a most brilliant spectacle. The fine day ended with the most terrible hurricane I ever witnessed. Thou sands of trees were torn up by their roots and hurled in the air. Houses were everywhere unroofed. It may well be supposed that every tent of our encamp ment was prostrated, and that general confusion and disorder marked the spot. The next day General Stuart surprised and glad dened me inexpressibly by placing in my hands my commission as major and adjutant-general of cavalry, which he had brought with him from Eichmond. The General himself had been created a Major- General. Our cavalry, strongly reinforced by regi ments from North and South Carolina, had been formed into a division consisting of three brigades, commanded by Brigadier-Generals Hampton, Fitz Lee, and Eobertson, with three batteries of horse- 92 OUR RECEPTION IN PORT ROYAL. artillery, amounting in all to about 15,000 well- mounted men. On the 4th of August the trumpet sounded again for the march, as a reconnaissance in force was to be undertaken in the direction of Port Eoyal and Fredericksburg. With four regiments and one bat tery we pushed on all day until we reached the vil lage of Bowling Green, about twenty miles distant, where we made a bivouac for the night. On the 5th, the hottest day of the whole summer, we continued our march, and arrived at Port Eoyal at eleven o clock in the morning, just after a squadron of the enemy s cavalry, already apprised of our approach, had retreated lower down the Eappahannock. The joy of the inhabitants at our coming was touching to witness. The ladies, many of them with their cheeks wet with tears, carried refreshments around among our soldiers, and manifested, with the deepest emotion, their delight in seeing the grey uniforms, and their gratitude at their deliverance from the op pressor. At one P.M. we resumed our march, halting only for a few minutes at the charming cottage of a lady, where, at a later period, I was to spend some pleasant days, which had just then been left by a band of Yankee marauders, one of whom had robbed an old negro servant of the family of his silver watch. The negro, who recognised Captain Black- PREPARATIONS FOR A SURPRISE. 93 ford as an old friend of the household, complained to him most piteously of this treatment, and implored him to enforce restitution of his property. About three o clock we overtook these marauders, whom our advance-guard had made prisoners, and upon one of the skulking fellows we at once discovered the watch, which, to the satisfaction of us all, and to the grinning delight of its rightful owner, Captain Blackford restored to him. At sunset we reached Eound Oak Church, only twelve miles distant from Fredericksburg, where we bivouacked, taking the precaution to form a long cordon of pickets and vedettes, who took care that the enemy should not be informed of our movements from any of our followers, by allowing no one to pass outside their line. At the same time we sent for ward some of our Texan scouts, who, soon return ing, reported the enemy encamped in large numbers about five miles from Fredericksburg. One of the scouts, a man famous in his profession, had been shot by one of the Yankee sentinels, and brought back with him an arm badly shattered. In our bivouac I met with a little adventure that turned out fortunately enough, but might have cost me my life. Fatigued by the long ride, and ex hausted by the intense heat of the day, I had spread my blanket, soon after my arrival, near an old log, 94 ENCOUNTER WITH A NEW ENEMY. which in former days had been used as a step by the ladies in mounting and dismounting on their rides to church, but which I now proposed, in its decay, should serve me as a pillow. Eesting my head upon it I fell at once into a deep sleep, from which I was presently awakened by something crawling over my hand. I quickly shook off the object, which gave out a sharp, clear, rattling sound, and which I per ceived in the bright light of the moon to be a snake more than four feet in length that raised itself at me in an attitude that meant mischief. Sleeping, as I always did, with my arms by my side, it was the work of a moment to draw my keen Damascus blade* and sever the reptile in twain. Excited, however, by this unfamiliar hostile attack, and finding that the dissevered parts of the body continued to mani fest vitality in wriggling about on the grass, I dealt yet several heavy blows at my enemy, and the noise * This Damascus blade, which will be frequently mentioned hereafter in my narrative, was a straight double-edged sword of tremendous size and excellent temper, which I had worn from the commencement of my military career in the Prussian Cuiras siers of the Guards. It was even better known in the Confederate army than myself; and many who were unable to pronounce my foreign name correctly used to speak of me as the Prussian with the big sword." Stuart wrote to me after the battle of Gettys burg, in which, being prostrated by wounds, I did not participate, referring to the operations of his cavalry, " My dear Von, I can not tell you how much I missed you and your broad blade at Gettysburg." A NARROW ESCAPE. 95 of the encounter aroused the General with the whole of his Staff. Arms in their hands, they hastened to the scene of action, believing that not fewer than a hundred Yankees had fallen upon me. A roar of laughter burst from them at the nature of my mid night combat ; but the affair seemed less ridiculous when they discovered that I had killed one of the largest specimens of the American rattlesnake, a reptile as venomous as the East Indian cobra, whose bite is certain and speedy death a fate which I had very narrowly escaped. I could obtain little sleep during the remainder of the night ; and was ready to move before sunrise when the command was given to mount. Our march lay in the direction of Massaponax Church, about eight miles distant from Fredericks- burg, on the Telegraph Eoad a wide plank turnpike leading directly to Eichmond. We had been in formed by our spies and patrols that a Federal force of 8000 men, with the usual complement of artillery, under the command of Generals Hatch and Gibbon, was on an expedition to destroy the most important line of railway communication with our army, and burn the depots of supplies at Hanover Junction. Biding as usual with the advance-guard, I was the first to discover the hostile column when we had reached a point within half a mile of the Telegraph 96 THE ENEMY SURPRISED. Road. I immediately gave the order to halt, and rode back to give information of the enemy s pre sence to General Stuart, who made his dispositions with his accustomed celerity. The main body of the enemy had already passed the spot where the road along which we were moving intersected the Tele graph Road, and only their long waggon-train with its escort remained behind. Two regiments, with two pieces of artillery, were ordered to turn to the left in pursuit of the column ; one regiment, the 3d Virginia, was ordered to attack the waggon-train ; and one regiment, with the rest of the artillery, was kept in reserve. I joined in the attack on the wag gon-train, and the surprise and confusion of the escort cannot be described, when with a yell the horsemen in grey dashed out of the dark wood, and the Yankees knew at once that the so-much-dreaded Stuart was again upon them. Many of the drivers endeavoured to turn back with their waggons and seek safety in the speed of their teams, while for a time the escort maintained a feeble defence ; but the waggons were rapidly overtaken, the escort cut down, captured, or dispersed ; and the whole of the heavily- loaded train, with ninety prisoners, fell into our hands our own loss having been two men mortally wounded. General Stuart now collected his whole force, ex- NEW MISSILES. 97 cept a single squadron left on picket at Massaponax Church, and pressed with all possible haste upon the main body of the enemy, who in the outset were totally surprised, and fled in disorderly rout before us for several miles. As soon as they discovered, however, that they had only cavalry and a few pieces of artillery against them, they made a stand, and be came in turn the assailants. Numerous batteries opened fire upon us ; and their long lines of tirail leurs advanced in beautiful order. On this occasion I had a good laugh at General Stuart. Among other novelties in offensive warfare, the enemy employed against us in the fight one-pounder cannons, the balls of which being curiously shaped made a peculiar sound in their passage through the air. Just as the General and I had been placing two of our pieces in favourable position, and were riding nearer to the front, one of these exasperating little balls passed directly between us ; and my brave General, whom many a time I had seen, amid the heaviest artillery- fire, perfectly indifferent to shot and shell hissing around him, now, as the new projectile whizzed past us with its unfamiliar music, made it the politest bow imaginable. In this combat I also saw for the first time explod ing rifle-balls used in action. They fell on all sides, bursting with a crackling noise in the trees and on VOL. i. G 98 RESULTS OF OUR FORAY. the ground, without doing much execution. After a short but sharp contest, General Stuart gave orders for the retreat, which was conducted with his usual skill along by-paths through the woods ; and our dis appearance from the field was so sudden and com plete, that the enemy could not possibly imagine what had become of their recent antagonists. I was myself sent to give the necessary advice to the squad ron left on picket, with orders then to follow the command in the direction it had taken. Eeturning to join my companions, I was compelled to cross an open field over which the enemy were advancing, and saw at once that their first line of tirailleurs had been pushed forward so far, that for the length of 300 yards I must pass in front of them at a distance of not more than 150 paces. I immediately set my horse in rapid gallop ; and though the bullets whistled around my head with every stride of the animal, I escaped unhurt, and soon overtook the General. The success of our expedition had indeed been brilliant. Besides the damage done to the enemy in killing and wounding many of their men, and in capturing 200 prisoners and a valuable waggon-train, we had defeated their plans, saved the railway and our supply depots from destruction, and so demoral ised them, by making them feel that the vigilant and FURTHER MOVEMENTS. 99 indefatigable Stuart was always in their rear, that they never organised another such raid from Frede- ricksburg. Late at night we again arrived at Bowling Green, where we encamped, and the next day re turned to Hanover Court-house. The General, Cap tain Blackford, and myself, galloping ahead of the troops, reached headquarters late in the afternoon, but in time to pay a visit in the evening to the family at Dundee. Here we found Mrs Stuart and her children, and Mrs Blackford, who had arrived during our absence, and who remained as guests at the hospitable mansion for several weeks. During the past week our army, principally Jack son s corps, had been moving along the Central Bail- way towards Gordonsville and Orange Court-house, as the new Federal commander, General Pope, had been concentrating a large army in the neighbour hood of Culpepper to try a new route in the Federal " On to Eichmond" The next day, after our arrival at headquarters, Stuart received a despatch summon ing him to meet Jackson at Gordonsville, to which place he went off alone by rail, leaving us to the enjoyment of an interval of repose. It was a delightful period, filled up with visits at camp from the gentlemen of the region around, long evening rides with our lady friends, and pleasant re unions. In the mornings I amused myself with my 100 NEGRO INGRATITUDE AND TREACHERY. r evolver shooting the tremendous bull-frog of the swamps, nearly as large as a rabbit, the legs of which were esteemed a great delicacy by my American friends, and appeared every day upon our breakfast- table. I ate them twice, and found the meat in fla vour and appearance very similar to young chicken, but I could never overcome my early prejudice against them, a little weakness for which I was often derided by my comrades. An incident now happened to me annoyingly illus trative of the treachery and ingratitude of the negro character. My servant Scott came to me with an affecting story of the serious illness of his wife, which so excited my sympathy that I not only obtained permission for him to visit his suffering spouse, but supplied him liberally with money, the contributions of myself and companions, to pay the expenses of his journey. The rascal disappeared, carrying off with him the greater part of my wardrobe, and we never saw him more. Our days of inaction were now drawing rapidly to an end. General Stuart, having taken a distinguished part in the battle of Cedar Run, where Jackson had utterly routed the advanced corps of Pope s army, came back with marching orders on the 15th. Our regiments were to be in motion early next morning, and the General and Staff were to overtake them in PARTING WITH MRS STUART. 101 the afternoon by rail. We dined for the last time at Dundee, and with grateful hearts took leave of our kind friends. I need not describe the parting scene between General Stuart and his family. I will only say that his dear lady did not suffer me to quit the house until I had promised to watch over her hus band in the hour of battle, and do all in my power to prevent him from rashly exposing himself to danger. CHAPTER V. OPENING OF THE SUMMER CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA ADVEN TURE AT VERDIERSVILLE THE FIRST CAVALRY-FIGHT AT BRANDY STATION FIGHT AT CUNNINGHAM S FORD HEAVY ARTILLERY-FIGHT BETWEEN THE HAZEL AND RAPPAHAN- NOCK RIVERS PASSAGE OF THE LATTER, AND MARCH TO WARRENTON AND CATLETT s STATION ARTILLERY ENGAGE MENT RECROSSING OF THE RAPPAHANNOCK FIGHTS AT WATERLOO BRIDGE MARCH TO SALEM AND BRISTOW STA TION CAPTURE OF THE LARGE FEDERAL SUPPLY-DEPOTS FIGHT AT MANASSAS PLAINS FIGHTS PRELIMINARY TO THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS SECOND GREAT BAT TLE OF MANASSAS, OR BATTLE OF GROVETON FROM THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS TO THE INVASION OF MARY LAND. s WHEN the train which we were to take for Gordons- ville reached the Hanover Court-house Station on the afternoon of the 16th August, our horses having been already safely placed in a stock-car awaiting its ar rival, it was so densely crowded with troops, many of them lying stretched out on the tops of the carriages, that the General and Staff, not wishing to deprive any of these brave fellows of their seats, determined A NIGHT JOURNEY. 103 to ride on the tender of the locomotive, where, in the best possible spirits, we made ourselves as comfort able as the circumstances of the case would allow. There is a feeling of great buoyancy in the breast of the soldier when, after a period of unusual inactivity, he goes forward again to the field one seems to one s self so strong, and looks so gaily forward to the com ing campaign. Too much occupied with the future to indulge in reveries of the past, or regrets for happy hours " departed never to return," we filled up the time with talk and song as we rolled rapidly through the beautiful country, of which, by reason of the thick clouds of smoke that enveloped us, we could catch only occasional glimpses. We arrived at Gordons- ville just at daybreak. When the morning light grew strong enough to enable us to see each other, we broke out at the same moment into a hearty roar of laughter, for it revealed faces as black as Ethiopia. The engine had been covering us with soot from the time we left Hanover Court-house, and it required many ablutions to restore the natural colour of our skins. After an hour s delay thus employed, and partaking of a light breakfast, we proceeded by spe cial train to Orange Court-house, where we brought up at eleven o clock in the morning. We now mounted our horses and rode through the numerous encampments of our army to the head- 104 ARRIVAL AT HEADQUARTERS. quarters of General Eobert E.Xee, where we tarried an hour, and then proceeded to the camp of Jackson, a few miles off, which we reached about three P.M., just in time for dinner. The great Stonewall gave but little thought to the comforts of life, but he was so much the pet of the people that all the planters and farmers in whose neighbourhood he erected his simple tent, vied with each other in supplying him abundantly with the delicacies of the table; and accordingly we found an excellent dinner set out, to which we did full justice. Immediately after rising from the repast, General Stuart despatched Captain Fitzhugh and Lieutenant Dabney of his Staff to the little village of Verdiersville, where he expected the arrival of Fitz Lee s brigade, and desired me to accom pany himself on a little reconnaissance to Clark s Mountain, where we had erected a signal-station, from which, it was said, there was a wide view of the plains of Culpepper, dotted over with the encamp ments of the Federal army. On our way we met one of our scouts, Mosby, who had acted as courier to General Stuart, and who subsequently so greatly dis tinguished himself in the guerilla warfare he con ducted. Knowing him well acquainted with the position of the enemy, the General ordered him to ride with us. The view from the summit of Clark s Mountain is indeed magnificent. On the right the VIEW FROM THE HEIGHTS. 105 eye ranges over the dark green of the immense forests which line the borders of the Eappahannock and Eapidan rivers for many miles, while in front stretches the vast fertile valley of Culpepper, engirdled in the remote landscape by the Blue Eidge, whose mountain- tops, thickly wooded, afforded, in their dark-blue tint as we saw them, a lovely contrast with the splendour of the evening sky. There were abundant signs of active military life in this valley. Many thousands of tents were to be seen, the thin blue smoke of their camp-fires rising straight up in the still air ; regiments of infantry were marching and counter - marching in various directions, and long waggon-trains were moving along the distant roads, escorted by cavalry detachments with gay pennons and guidons. From every indication we were convinced, as we set out on our return, that the enemy was preparing a general movement, probably a retrograde one; and this proved to be the fact. 18^ August. It was late in the night when we reached the little village of Verdiersville, finding there Fitzhugh and Dabney, who reported, to General Stuart s great surprise, that our cavalry had not as yet arrived. Captain Fitzhugh was sent immediately in search of it, while the rest of us bivouacked in the little garden of the first farmhouse on the right of the village. Being so far outside of our lines we did 106 A NARROW ESCAPE. not unsaddle, taking off only our blankets ; and, for myself, I observed the precaution of lying down with my weapons, which made Lieutenant Dabney ask me why I would persist in making myself so uncom fortable; but he had reason to regret that he had not the prudence to profit by my example. We slept little during the night, and were awake with the dawn. About four A.M. we heard the heavy tramp ling of a long column of cavalry and the rumbling of artillery, and saw through the mist of the morning a strong body of horsemen crossing the road which led through the village, about 400 yards distant from us. General Stuart, confidently believing that this was Fitz Lee s brigade, sent Mosby and the only other courier we had with us to order the command to halt, and inform the commanding officer that he wished to see him immediately. A few seconds later we heard pistol-shots in rapid succession, and saw our two. men coming towards us at a full run, a whole squad ron of the enemy in close pursuit. I stood close to the General, handing him his blankets, as the Yankees, not more than a hundred and fifty yards from us, came rattling along. Stuart, without hat or haversack, jumped into the saddle, and, lifting his animal lightly and cleverly over the garden enclo sure, gained the open field ; after him Dabney, leav ing behind him his sword and pistols. I had to run A RIDE FOR LIFE. 107 about fifteen steps to the place where my horse was tied to the fence, and reaching it, I unfastened the bridle, but had no time to throw the reins over his head. The animal became excited, and reared and plunged fearfully, and I was obliged to vault upon his back without the rein a feat which I safely accomplished, and afterwards succeeded in forcing him through the garden gate, which was opportunely held open for me by the old lady of the house. Here I came directly upon the major who commanded the detachment, who placed his revolver at my breast and demanded my surrender; but before he or his men could divine my intentions, by a smart slap on my horse s head I turned it in the right direction, and, putting the spurs deep into his flanks, I extricated myself by a tremendous flying leap from the hostile circle which was rapidly drawing closer and closer around me. A shower of carbine and pistol bullets followed my retreating figure, and the Yankees, en raged by the trick I had played them, dashed after me in hot and furious pursuit. The greater number of my pursuers I soon left far behind me, thanks to the speed of my noble black charger ; but a few, and the major foremost among them, were still close upon me. The latter discharged at me three barrels of his revolver, one of the bullets passing through my uni form without scratching the skin. After a race of 108 CAPTURE OF STUART S HAT. nearly a mile the Yankees gave up the game, and I was able to get hold of my bridle, having been until then, so far as all management of my horse was con cerned, in a perfectly helpless condition. Captain Fitzhugh, who had been taken prisoner by the same troops the previous night while on his way to look after Fitz Lee s brigade, and who, having given his parole, had been allowed to witness the whole affair, told me afterwards that he could not understand how I ever made my escape, and that at every shot fired by the major he had shut his eyes so that he might not see me fall. Soon after getting clear of my pursuers I was joined by Mosby, and we rode back some distance to see what had become of our companions. We soon found the General bareheaded, looking at the disappearing column of the enemy, who were carry ing off in triumph his beautiful hat, the present of a lady in Baltimore, and his haversack, containing some important maps and documents. Dabney made a sorry appearance as he came up without his arms, and I could not help maliciously asking him if he felt quite comfortable now. Stuart covered his head with his handkerchief as a protection against the sun, and we could not look at each other, despite our heat and indignation, without laughing heartily at the figures we respectively cut. The driver of a KETREAT OF POPE. 109 sutler s waggon belonging to a Georgia regiment whom we fell in with on our return, happily supplied General Stuart with a new hat ; but the tidings of our mishap and adventure had spread like lightning through the whole army, and excited a great sensa tion. Wherever we passed an encampment on our way, the troops cheered us, and vociferously inquired of General Stuart what had become of his hat ? Fitz Lee s brigade, which had been detained by bad roads and a misconception of orders, did not join us until late that night, when Eobertson s brigade also arrived on the Eapidan. Hampton s command had been left behind on the lines of the Chickahominy on picket duty. It was a great satis faction to be with our troops again, and to be assured that an opportunity would soon be afforded us of paying off the Yankees for their recent attentions to us. On the morning of the 19th we marched with General Fitz Lee s brigade towards the Eapidan, where Eobertson s command had encamped. There we bivouacked, and made our preparations for the fight which would in all probability take place on the following day. The army of General Pope had retreated, in accordance with our expectations, for a considerable distance, and taken a new position on the north side of the Eappahannock, leaving a large body of cavalry on our side of the river, in the 110 PASSAGE OF THE RAPID AN. neighbourhood of Brandy Station, on the Orange and Alexandria Eailroad. This force we had orders to drive off. 20th August. At daybreak, with two brigades, we crossed the Eapidan. The passage was attended with difficulty, especially with the artillery, on account of the depth of the water. Lee s brigade was sent to the right, in the direction of Kelly s Ford ; Gen eral Stuart and Staff marched with Eobertson s brigade in the direction of Stevensburg, about one mile from Brandy Station, and both commands were to unite near the latter place. Our advance-guard came first in contact with the enemy, who, broken by the attack, fled in great confusion, and were pur sued through the little village and more than a mile beyond it. The joy of the inhabitants, who for a long time had seen none but Federal soldiers, and who had been very badly treated by them, cannot be described. Men, women, and children came running out of all the houses towards us with loud exclama tions of delight, many thanking God on their knees for their deliverance from the enemy. A venerable old lady asked permission to kiss our battle-flag, which had been borne throughout so many victorious fights, and blessed it with tears. The enthusiasm was so great that old men and boys, all that were able to carry a gun, in spite of our earnest remon- THE ENEMY AGAIN KEPULSED. Ill strances, followed our column to join in the fight with the detested Yankees. The enemy, strongly reinforced, had now taken position about two miles from Stevensburg, on the outskirts of an extensive wood. Several small de tachments had been pushed nearer towards us, and were patrolling on our flanks. One of these, in strength about half a squadron, mounted on grey horses, operated with great dash ; but, advancing imprudently, was cut off by a body of our men, who fell upon them like a thunderbolt, killing and taking prisoners all but six, who saved themselves by the fleetness of their horses. The Federals dismounted many of their cavalrymen ; and their line of sharp shooters, about a mile in length, poured upon us from the dense undergrowth a heavy fire, wounding several of our men and horses. This checked for a time our onward movement ; but a large number of our troops, having been also dismounted, engaged the Federal tirailleurs with great gallantry, and we then charged with the main body upon the enemy s centre, and quickly drove them from their position. In the meUe I captured a very good horse, which was unfortunately wounded very soon afterwards; but I took from it an excellent saddle and bridle that had belonged to an officer. The enemy s retreat was now so rapid it was dim- 112 GREAT CAVALRY-FIGHT. cult to keep up with them, so that General Stuart, in order not to exhaust all our horses, took only one regiment, the 7th, in the pursuit with him, giving orders to the rest to follow at an easy trot. We were not long in reaching the heights near Brandy Station, from which we saw the Federal cavalry in line of battle in the large open plain before it. They were about 3500 strong, and, being drawn up in beautiful order, presented, with their arms glittering in the sun and their waving battle-flags, a splendid spectacle. Our brave fellows of the 7th were im mediately placed to confront them, and the sharp shooters of both parties were soon engaged in a brisk skirmish. With great impatience and anxiety we now waited the arrival of our reserves, and courier after courier was sent to hurry them to the spot. As even our colour-sergeant had to perform orderly duty, I took the battle-flag from his hands. This act attracted the attention of the enemy s sharp shooters at a distance of 800 yards, and they kept up, from that remote point, for some time, a surpris ingly well-directed fire at me, one of their bullets cutting a, new rent in the glorious old ensign. The enemy now commenced his serious attack, and as our position, by reason of his vastly superior numbers, was a precarious one, General Stuart, taking the standard himself, ordered me to gallop GREAT CAVALEY-FIGHT. 113 114 THE ENEMY FINALLY DEFEATED. turned out disastrously for us ; and, collecting about eighty of our men around me, I threw myself with this comparatively small force upon them. They at once slackened their pace, and when we had got within forty yards of them, halted, and received us with a volley which had very little effect. Upon this they fled precipitately, and were chased by us into the woods, where many of them were cut down and made prisoners. The main body of the enemy meanwhile had rallied several times, but again and again they had to yield before our impetuous ad vance, until the last of them were driven through the waves of the Eappahannock, where their infantry and artillery, strongly posted on the farther bank, offered them protection, leaving behind many of their dead and wounded and several hundred prisoners. I had a happy feeling when riding out of the battle and wiping the blood from my sword on my horse s mane. I was complimented by General Stuart most warmly for my behaviour, and to this day it is to me one of the most exciting recollections of the war. The whole had been a genuine cavalry- light, with sabres crossing and single combat in cidents that very rarely occur in modern warfare- reminding me very much of the battle-pieces of th< Dutch painter Wouvermans. The. Yankees gave i YANKEE PICTURE OF THE AUTHOR. 115 116 PASSAGE OF THE KAPPAHANNOCK. morning a large party of our army had arrived in the vicinity of Brandy Station, and soon after day light the boom of artillery from Jackson s corps, which was in advance, announced to us that Old Stonewall was already at work. General Eobert E. Lee had established his headquarters in a grove quite near us, and as we could get nothing for breakfast, we gladly accepted his invitation to share his own frugal meal, which consisted of rye coffee, bread, and wild honey. Orders were now given us to proceed immediately to the front and co-operate with Jackson in the event of any further extensive operations being attempted. The firing of the morning we soon found to have been nothing more than an artillery duel between some of Jackson s guns and the Federal batteries, from which the latter withdrew after one of their caissons had been exploded. Some infantry and cavalry, which had been posted on the opposite bank of the river, having also disappeared, we re ceived orders to cross the Eappahannock, with two regiments of horse and a section of rifle pieces, and reconnoitre the enemy s position. As the road we had to take was tortuous, leading through several ravines up the hilly country on the other side of Cunningham s Ford, and thus affording the enemy a good opportunity for ambush, I was sent ahead with sixty of our men, to gain the heights as quickly as A STAMPEDE. 117 possible, and select without delay a favourable posi tion for our guns. This we found readily enough, on a commanding hill in the midst of a corn-field, as we met with no resistance, and saw only a few squads of cavalry afar off. Riding over the ground where the enemy s batteries had recently been placed, I was surprised at the evidences it presented of the tremen dous effects of Jackson s artillery. The spot where the caisson had been blown up was covered with dead and wounded men, and muskets and all sorts of equipments lay around, which had been thrown away by the supporting force. As this had consisted of new levies, the men had been demoralised by our well-directed fire, and fled in utter stampede upon the explosion of an ammunition-chest in the very midst of them. Among other things, I captured here one of the enemy s large regimental drums, which I presented to one of Jackson s regiments, to the delight of every man in it. Scarcely had our rifle pieces been put in position, when there came in sight a considerable force of the enemy s cavalry, which was held in check only by the accurate aim and rapid service of our gunners, and the bold advance of the 5th Virginia Cavalry under Colonel Kosser on our left. We very soon discovered, however, that just now the enemy was disinclined to allow any further proceedings on our 118 A DANGEROUS POSITION. part. Several batteries from different points opened upon us, and a large body of infantry made its ap pearance, throwing forward at double-quick two lines of skirmishers in excellent order. The command was at once given for us to retire ; and as Colonel Rosser s regiment, by reason of the enemy s rapid advance, had been placed in great danger of being cut off, I was sent to warn him of the peril of his position, leaving him to get out of it as best he could. I reached Rosser in safety, but, to rejoin General Stuart without loss of time, I was compelled to ride back along the same line, upon which the enemy s skirmishers had been pushing closer and closer, and where again shot after shot was fired at me. It is not a pleasant experience to serve, for so long a dis tance, as a target for practised marksmen, and to count the chances, with every lope of one s horse, of getting safely past them. The last eight or ten of these tirailleurs were not more than eighty or a hun dred yards distant from my path, and I could dis tinctly hear the officer calling out to his men to take a quiet aim and bring that impudent rebel officer down. But they missed me, and the tall stalks of a neighbouring corn-field soon concealed me for a time from their view. My troubles, however, were not yet over. On getting in sight of the ford, I discovered it to be already occupied by the Yankee cavalry, who MY VIRGINIAN CHARGER, 119 immediately observed me, and started in pursuit. The sharpshooters being now also again on my track, firing incessantly, and yelling like bloodhounds, I had but one way left; so, urging my horse* some distance higher up the river, and forcing him to a tremendous leap from the high bank into the deep stream, I crossed it swimming, the Yankee bullets like hailstones slashing the water all around me. I was received with great enthusiasm and loud cheer ing by our own men, who had witnessed the whole scene, full of anxiety for my fate. Eosser also reached us safely with his command some hours later, but he had been obliged to cut his way through, with the loss of several of his men and two of his officers. A heavy cannonade was kept up for the remainder of the day by the enemy s batteries, which took posi tion on the opposite bank of the river, and were answered with spirit by Jackson s guns, but little damage was done on either side. The Yankees em- * This was the same charger which saved me at Verdiersville by his fleetness, an excellent coal-black Virginia horse, of medium size, well-bred and strongly built, but one of the fleetest and best jumping horses I ever rode. I could fire from his back as accurately as on foot, and the animal seemed to understand per fectly his master s intentions, so that whenever I raised my re volver, my faithful black, however excited he might have been the moment before, stood as quiet as possible, one fore-foot raised from the ground, scarcely breathing until the shot had been fired, and then bounding forward with all his native animation. 120 AGAIN IN ADVANCE. ployed here a shell which, being closed by a peculiar screw, made in its flight a most extraordinary noise, very like the high notes of the mocking-bird. This excited the lively merriment of our careless fellows, who greeted every one of these melodious missiles with a loud piping imitation from one wing of our army to the other. 22d August. The darkness of the night had not yet given way to dawn, when we again set out for active operations, with portions of Fitz Lee s and Eobertson s brigades and our horse-artillery, number ing about 2000 men. A strong demonstration was to be made in the direction of Wellford s Ford on the Kappahannock, to divert the attention of the Federals, and facilitate the daring raid we were after wards to undertake. Accordingly, we marched about five miles northward, crossed the Hazel river, a tri butary of the Kappahannock, and arrived about eight o clock at Wellford s Ford, where the opposite banks of the latter stream were occupied by the Yankees in great numbers. The enemy s artillery was soon en gaged in a brisk duel with our two batteries of horse- artillery, which suffered severely, losing many men and horses, in consequence of the superior positions and greater weight of metal of their antagonists. About ten o clock we were relieved by Jackson s batteries, and, withdrawing from the field without IN REAR OF THE ENEMY. 121 the knowledge of the enemy, proceeded in rapid trot eight miles higher up the river to Waterloo Bridge, where we crossed it, and continued our march to Warrenton. Late in the evening we entered this little town, and were received with the liveliest de monstrations of joy by the inhabitants. We were now again exactly in the rear of the Federal army, the right wing of which we had marched round; and our bold design was nothing less than to capture the Commander-in-Chief and his headquarters, which, as our scouts reported, had been established at Catlett s Station, a point on the Orange and Alexandria Eailroad. After an hour s rest to feed our horses, we left Warrenton behind us, continuing our march with great caution. Night was now rapidly approaching, and the angry clouds, which had been gathering in the sky throughout the afternoon, soon burst upon us in a tremendous thun derstorm and the heaviest rain I ever witnessed. The narrow roads became in a short time running streams of water, and the little creeks on our route foamed and raged like mountain torrents. But this was the very condition of the elements we could most have desired. The enemy s pickets, in the fury of the storm, indifferent to everything but their own personal comfort, were picked up, one after another, by our advanced-guard to the last man, and we had 122 AN ADVENTURE. thus arrived within the immediate neighbourhood of the main body of the enemy without the least infor mation on their part of our approach. Having been sent back by General Stuart with some orders to the rear of our column, I had, on my return, a very amusing adventure. In passing one of the farmhouses on the road, my sharp eye dis covered, behind the curtains of one of the windows, a Federal officer, who disappeared on my approach. Instantly dismounting, I knocked at the door, order ing it to be opened at once ; but instead of this, I heard tables and chairs moved hurriedly against it, which so much provoked me that I threw my whole weight upon the light frame. The door gave way with a loud crash, and hurled my Yankee, with all chair-and-table fortifications, over upon the floor oJ the little parlour. Before I could lay hands upon the poor fellow who, being unarmed, and seeii himself at the mercy of so powerful-looking an ad versary, had risen from his humiliating position with the drollest expression of extreme terror on his face a very pretty young woman came out of the adjoining room, bearing a waiter in her hands with a bottle oi wine and other refreshments, which she offered me . in the most graceful manner possible, placing herself at the same time between me and my victim. Tac tics like these were so novel to me that for a moment CAPTURE A PRISONER. 123 I quite lost my self-possession; but, very soon re covering my wits, I thanked her politely for her hos pitality, which I should be very ready to accept after I had done my duty. But approaching again and again my prisoner, I encountered again and again this charming obstacle, so that we played for a good while the juvenile game of fox -and -goose. The scene of action had in the mean time shifted towards a broad door-like window, which opened upon the garden side, and from the gathering darkness, and its proximity to the surrounding forest, afforded a very fair opportunity of escape ; so seeing no other way of bringing the interview to a satisfactory conclusion, I levelled my pistol at the officer s breast, and said, "Madam, if you cannot bear separation from the enemy of your country, I will leave him with you, but not alive." This had the desired effect. The fair creature abandoned her position, and in the midst of her bitter tears -and pathetic appealings, which my sense of duty alone enabled me to resist, I bore my prisoner off. He was a handsome young man, a lieutenant in an infantry regiment, and had contracted an engagement of marriage with his pro tectress before the war commenced. The rain was still pouring in torrents at eleven P.M., when we came directly upon the Federal en campment, which extended about a mile in length 124 A SUCCESSFUL SURPRISE. on either side of the railroad. We halted at the dis tance of about two hundred yards to form our long lines and make our dispositions, which we accom plished without attracting the notice of our adver saries in the heavy rain and amid the incessantly- rolling thunder. The sound of a single trumpet was the signal for nearly 2000 horsemen to dash, as they did with loud shouts, upon" the utterly paralysed Yankees, who were cut down and made prisoners before they had recovered from their first astonish ment. I myself had instructions to proceed with a select body of men to General Pope s tent, which was pointed out to us by a negro whom we had captured during the day, and who had been "im pressed" by one of Pope s staff-officers as a ser vant. Unfortunately for us, the Commander-in-Chief had, for once, this day his "headquarters in the saddle" an intention which he had so boastfully announced at the commencement of his campaign and had started a few hours before our arrival on a reconnaissance, so that we found only his private baggage, official papers, horses, &c. &c. I obtained as booty a magnificent field-glass, which was after wards of great service to me. The scene had become in the mean time a most exciting one, and the con fusion, which is always the consequence of a night attack, had reached its highest point. The Federal CONFUSED MELEE. 125 troops on the other side of the railroad, which was not so easily accessible, had recovered from their panic, and, reinforced by some companies of the so-called Bucktail Bines, commenced a vigorous fire upon our men, who were scattered all over the field burning and plundering to their hearts content. In the background our reserves were actively employed in firing the immense depots and waggon-trains and the railway bridge; and the flames, rising from a hundred different points at once, reddened the dark cloudy night. It was difficult to recognise friend or foe. Shots fell in every direction bullets whizzed through the air on all sides no one knew where to strike a blow or where to level his revolver no one could be certain whether the man riding at his elbow was Federal or Confederate. Having received orders from General Stuart to cut the telegraph wire, I proceeded with twenty men to the execution of this purpose ; but just as we had reached a pole, I saw suddenly, by the vivid illumi nation of a flash of lightning, a whole company of the enemy drawn up in line not fifteen steps from us ; and I had just time to call out to my men to He down, when a rattling volley sent a shower of bullets over our heads. I galloped back to the General ask ing for a squadron to assist me in carrying out his orders. The squadron was immediately granted. 126 OUR COMPLETE SUCCESS. Attacking the Federal infantry myself in front, while Colonel Eosser took them in flank, we suc ceeded in driving them farther back. But they still maintained a rapid fusillade, and to climb the pole and cut the wire was a very dangerous undertaking. A young fellow of not more than seventeen volun teered to perform the daring feat, and, using my shoulders as a starting-point, he ran up the pole with the agility of a squirrel ; the wire, severed by a stroke of his sabre, was soon dangling to the ground ; and the brave boy escaped unhurt, several bullets, however, having struck the pole during his occupation of it. About three o clock in the morning the work of destruction at Catlett s Station was complete, and the order was given to re-form and start upon our re turn. The alarm had been spread over a great part of the Federal wing, and troops were marching against us from several directions. Our success, in spite of the great confusion of the midnight attack, had been very decided. We had killed and wounded a great number of the enemy; captured 400 pris oners, among whom were several officers, and more than 500 horses ; destroyed several hundred tents, large supply-depots, and long waggon-trains ; se cured, in the possession of the Quartermaster of General Pope, 500,000 dollars in greenbacks, and RECEPTION AT WARRENTON. 127 20,000 in gold; and, most important of all, had deprived the Federal Commander of all his bag gage and private and official papers, exposing to us the effective strength of his army, the disposition of his different corps d armfo, and the plans of his whole campaign. Our loss was comparatively small; and after a rapid march, impeded only by the deluge of water still pouring down upon us, and compelling us to swim several creeks which were ordinarily but a few inches in depth, we reached Warrenton, with all our prisoners and booty, at eight o clock the follow ing morning. We had but a few minutes rest in the little town of Warrenton, when our rear-guard reported a strong force in pursuit of us, and a heavy cannonade from the direction of Jackson s position summoned us to move on. These few minutes, however, w r e employed to advantage. Wet by the rain of twelve hours, and chilled by the sharp air of the morning, we found grateful reinvigoration in the viands that were offered us by the kind citizens of the place, who heard with the greatest delight of the success of our expedition. I was enjoying some delicious coffee, served by the fair hands of a lovely and accomplished young girl, whose acquaintance I had made the previous day, when, hearing that we had taken Pope s Quartermaster, she laughed heartily, and told us that when he had been 128 A LOST WAGER. quartered at her father s house a few days before, he had, in boasting of the magnificent army of Pope, declared his intention of entering Eichmond before the end of the month, and that she had made him a bet of a bottle of champagne that he would not. She now regarded her wager as lost, as the Quartermaster would doubtless enter Eichmond before the time specified earlier, indeed, but under other circum stances, than he had expected and she begged me to obtain permission from General Stuart to pay the champagne. General Stuart, of course, readily ac ceded to the playful request; and as our column passed along she stood at the garden gate of her home, with a malicious smile on her face and the bottle in her hand, and paid her wager most gracefully to the Yankee Quartermaster, who took the joke very well and the champagne very willingly, declaring that he should always be happy to drink the health of so charming a person. 23d to 26th August. We were soon out of sight of Warrenton. The glowing radiance of the sun break ing at last through the parting clouds brought life and cheer to our drenched and chilled column. About twelve o clock we reached the scene of action, where there had been only a heavy artillery-fight, and not, as we had supposed, a general engagement. Our pursuers having stopped at Warrenton, we had there- A DESTRUCTIVE SHELL. 129 fore a short period of welcome inactivity, and the orders to dismount and feed the horses were received with pleasure by every man of our fatigued command. As soon as I had taken the proper care of my horse, and emptied my long cavalry boots of several quarts of water they contained, I fell fast asleep in the shade of a gigantic hickory-tree, from which refreshing slumber I was suddenly aroused some hours later by a spirited cannonade. The enemy were advancing, and the guns of Robertson s brigade had engaged a Federal battery. One of our squadrons, going for ward to support the artillery, and being unneces sarily exposed by their captain, suffered here severely by a single well-directed shell, which, bursting at the head of the column, killed and wounded fourteen men. The fighting ceased at night, and we encamped upon the ground occupied by us during the day. At daybreak on the 24th, the enemy still advancing in heavy force, we marched rapidly towards the Eappa- hannock, which we found much swollen, but which we crossed in safety at eight o clock. General Stuart now galloped over to the head quarters of General Eobert E. Lee, about five miles distant, and ordered me to proceed with the Staff and couriers to Waterloo Bridge, six miles higher up the river, near which a portion of our cavalry was to en camp. This bridge was now the only one left which VOL. I. I 130 DEFENCE OF THE BRIDGE. for a considerable tract of country afforded a passage across the Kappahannock, and its preservation was therefore of great importance to our future military operations. Just as I reached the bridge an orderly galloped up to me at full speed, reporting that a strong body of the enemy, consisting of infantry, cav alry, and artillery, was rapidly advancing upon us, and was at that moment not more than a mile from the spot. The position of a senior staff-officer in the Confederate army was a very important and respon sible one, and General Stuart had given me instruc tions, in his absence, to issue any necessary com mands in his name ; so I immediately despatched a courier to the commanding officer of the nearest regiment, the 7th Virginia Cavalry, with orders for him to proceed with all haste to the river, and post his men as dismounted sharpshooters on the woody cliffs on both sides of the bridge ; and galloping my self after our artillery, which had marched some dis tance to the rear, and taking back with me the first two pieces I fell in with, I arrived at the bridge just in time to receive the dense column of the approach ing Federals with a destructive fire of canister from my light howitzers, which for a little while effectually checked their advance. It was not long, however, before they threw their skirmishers forward, and a brisk fusillade was rattling along the line. Their DESPERATE CONFLICT FOR THE BRIDGE. 131 batteries also opened heavily upon us, and were an swered gallantly by my howitzers. Matters were pro ceeding thus favourably when, about twelve o clock, General Stuart, whom I had informed by an orderly of the state of affairs, arrived with reinforcements, expressing his great satisfaction with what had been done, and thanking me for having saved the bridge. The fight now became more and more general. The enemy brought several brigades of infantry into ac tion, and opened upon us with several new batteries. In the mean time all the guns of our horse-artillery had arrived upon the ground, and were pouring their deadly missiles into the Federal ranks. Twice did the Yankees succeed in setting fire to the bridge with incendiary shell, but the flames were instantly extin guished by our gallant men. Several times their storming columns, advancing at a double-quick, got nearly across to our side of the river 1 ; but again and again were they hurled back, leaving their dead and wounded behind them, by the well-directed fire of our sharpshooters and of our field-pieces, which were now concentrated upon the narrow path. The dark ness of the night at last put an end to the conflict, and we found ourselves with small loss masters of the situation against vastly superior numbers. Early on the morning of the 25th the contest was renewed, and for several hours we had very hot work, 132 GENERAL POPE S TREASURES. until about eleven A.M. we were relieved by our infantry, and enabled to take some rest from our exhausting duties. During the afternoon I received from Fitz Lee s Quartermaster, Major Mason, as a mount for my negro servant William, an excellent grey mule, which was among our captures at Catlett s Station, and will often be mentioned in succeeding portions of this narrative. It will be recollected that some of the spolia opima of Catlett s Station were greenbacks and gold. As these were contained in solid iron safes, of which the keys had been lost, it was not the easiest matter in the world to get at them. It was thought, however, a profitable employ ment of our earliest leisure to investigate General Pope s sub-treasury, and our men had been hammer ing away at the safes for some time without result, when General Stuart turned round to me and said, laughingly, " If nobody can open these strong boxes, we must call on Major Armstrong (a nickname he had given me) to assist us." Accepting the banter at once, I delivered a few heavy blows upon the safes with a serviceable axe, which laid them open, amid the loud cheers of our soldiers, who, with their accustomed idle curiosity, had formed a large circle round us. Two boxes of excellent cigars, which the Yankee Quartermaster had kept in this place of security, doubtless as the Cockney at the French A FEMALE SOLDIER. 133 custom-house expressed it, "pour fumigation lui- meme," fell to me as my share of the spoil a great luxury indeed, to one who had long been deprived of the aromatic Havana weed. In the evening I was sent over to General Eobert E. Lee s headquarters to carry thither the captured de^ spatches and papers ; and being invited by the General to partake of his modest supper, I had to relate many particulars of our recent raid, to which he listened with great interest. There was a good deal of merri ment among the young staff-officers at headquarters concerning one of our Catlett s Station prisoners, whom I had taken over with me under charge of a courier for further instructions and who, just as we were sending off the main body of these prisoners to Eichmond, had been discovered to be a good-looking woman in full Federal uniform. In order that she might follow to the field her warlike lord, she had enlisted as a private soldier in the same company with him, and now claimed to be excepted from the rest of the prisoners as a privilege of her sex. It was decided, however, that this modern Jeanne d Arc must share the fate of her comrades for the present, and further decision in the case was left to the Eich mond authorities. The whole of Longstreet s corps had now been removed from Eichmond to Culpepper, and occupied the line of the Eappahannock opposite 134 AGAIN ON THE MARCH. the Federal army. Jackson s troops had been quietly withdrawn from the front, and his corps had been in motion during the whole of the afternoon, marching nobody but General Lee and his Lieutenant knew where. I also went back to General Stuart with marching orders for himself and the greater part of his cavalry. 26th and 27 Ih August. The line of our march lay directly in the tracks of Jackson s troops, who, by the extraordinary rapidity of their movements, had gained the title of the " Foot-Cavalry " of the army, and who had now been taken by their great leader upon an expedition in flank of the enemy, which was brilliantly successful, and insured the failure of Pope s whole campaign. Our column consisted of nearly 6000 horse and our flying artillery. Starting at daybreak, we forded the Eappahannock near Hin- zen s Mill, eight miles above Waterloo Bridge, and proceeded with great caution all day through the extensive forests of the county of Faughire, taking by-paths in the woods, where we were often com pelled to ride in single file. Passing near the little town of Orleans, we reached Salem late in the after noon, where at last we overtook Jackson s corps, but where we did not tarry, pushing forward in advance to Gainesville, at which place we arrived after night fall. Here a squadron was left behind on picket, A DISTURBED NIGHT. 135 and here I received orders from General Stuart, who had continued his march to Bristow Station, on the Orange and Alexandria Bailroad, to remain and keep open the communications between himself and Jack son. At Gainesville we passed a most exciting and unsatisfactory night. As the day had been exces sively hot, I had given orders to my men to unsaddle, that our weary horses might be refreshed ; and I had just taken the saddle off my own steed, when our pickets, who had been posted about a mile outside the village towards Centreville, came in at full gal lop, reporting the enemy s cavalry in close pursuit of them. We had barely time to get ready for action when the Yankee advance-guard came thundering along through the darkness of the night. They were received with a sharp fire from the revolvers of my self and my staff of couriers ; but in a moment, sup ported by our charging squadron, we threw ourselves upon them, driving them back in confusion, and taking several of their number prisoners. The enemy made no further effort to dislodge us ; but our pickets, excited by the suddenness of the first attack, rode in five or six times during the night with false alarms, which brought us into the saddle, and I hailed with great satisfaction the daylight, which relieved me from my anxiety. I now pushed rapidly forward to Bristow Station, which our cavalry had already left, 136 ARRIVAL AT MANASSAS. after having accomplished their work of destruction. They had torn up the track of the railroad for a long distance, captured four trains and a considerable number of prisoners, and demolished everything that could be of the least value to the enemy. There was now no time to be lost by us. From the plains of Manassas, about seven miles distant, rolled the thunder of cannon, and I hurried on as fast as our horses could carry us, crossing the memorable stream of Bull Kun, just in the neighbourhood where the first battle of the war had been fought, and reaching Manassas about nine o clock in the morning. The plateau of Manassas presents an area of about three miles square, over which the Yankees had built an irregular town of storehouses, barracks, huts, and tents, which was fortified on all sides by continuous redoubts. Here were collected stores and provisions, ammunition and equipments for an army of 100,000 men (besides an enormous quantity of luxuries un known to warfare), the capture of which was a most important success to our arms. The sight that was presented to me at the moment of my arrival was truly a magnificent one. In front, rapidly advancing, were the long lines of our cavalry, their pennons flut tering gaily in the morning air, and moving in com pany with them might be seen the horse-artillery, from whose pieces, as well as from the guns we had THE SPOILS CAPTURED THEKE. 137 captured in the redoubts and were now serving with admirable effect, dense clouds of white smoke were spread over the plain ; on the left Jackson s veteran columns were pushing forward at a double-quick, while in the distant view the blue masses of the enemy were in rapid flight towards the glimmering woods. I found General Stuart exceedingly delighted with his success. He had taken the troops guard ing the place completely by surprise, capturing the greater part of them and twelve pieces of artillery in the redoubts without much fighting, and had just routed three brigades of infantry that had been sent from Alexandria as reinforcements. The enemy in their flight had left behind their dead and wounded and more than 1500 runaway negroes men, women, and children. The quantity of booty was very great, and the amount of luxuries absolutely incredible. It was exceedingly amusing to see here a ragged fellow regaling himself with a box of pickled oysters or potted lobster ; there another cutting into a cheese of enormous size, or emptying a bottle of champagne ; while hundreds were engaged in opening the pack ages of boots and shoes and other clothing, and fitting themselves with articles of apparel to replace their own tattered garments. The liquors, with a proper degree of precaution, were at once seized by the Quartermaster and placed under a strong guard, to 138 CONTENTS OF A SUTLER S WAGGON. avert the consequences of immoderate indulgence. There was a good deal of jealousy between Jackson s artillery and our own with regard to the disposition that was to be made of the captured horses. Among other prizes of this description we had taken a Yankee sutler s waggon one of those large gaudily- painted vans drawn always by four excellent horses ; and General Stuart desired me to trot rapidly over with the waggon to our horse-artillery, assign the horses to the nearest battery, and dispose of the con tents as I thought proper. It gave me great plea sure, after I had changed the four stately bays into stout artillery-horses, to divide the plunder among our brave cannoneers, who soon collected round the waggon in large numbers, and received the contents with loud demonstrations of delight. The different boxes were speedily opened by my sword, and were found to contain shirts, hats, pocket-handkerchiefs, oranges, lemons, wines, cigars, and all sorts of knick- knacks. I helped myself only to two boxes of rega lias, which I managed to tie securely to the pommel of my saddle. We were occupied throughout the day in collecting as much of the booty as we could carry off with us, and preparing the rest for destruction. During the afternoon we received reports that the Federal army was moving rapidly upon us from various points, and KEt>ULSE OF THE ENEMY. 139 very soon Swell s division, which formed Jackson s rear, was hotly engaged with their advance-guard. The main body of our infantry commenced now to march off quietly in the direction of Centreville, turn ing afterwards towards the Stone Bridge and Sudley s Mill, while the cavalry remained on the plains to apply the torch to the captured property as soon as this might be necessary. All the storehouses and depots were filled with straw and hay, and combusti bles were also placed in forty-six railway cars, which had been pushed closely together. The battle ha,d in the mean time become fierce the thunder of cannon and the roar of musketry rolling incessantly; but although the enemy in vastly superior numbers at tacked us with vigour, and although the old hero Ewell lost a leg in the conflict (a casualty which dis abled him for a long time from again taking the field), they were wholly unable to break the lines of those veterans who had given their commander the name of Stonewall, and who held their ground until night put an end to the slaughter. Then they with drew from their position and joined the main body of their corps. Just as the sun was disappearing behind the range of distant hills that formed the western horizon, the flames were rising from a hundred different points of the plain, bringing out vividly each one of a legion of 140 DESTRUCTION OF CAPTURED STORES. dark figures which were moving about, in the midst of the conflagration, to assist in spreading the fire, and fanning it into fury wherever it languished. The glow reflected from all these burning buildings, tents, and railway cars, with the red glare from the mouths of the cannon, and the sparkling of the bursting shells as seen against the darkening forest, made up a spec tacle of strange mysterious splendour. After all that we wished to preserve had been secured, and all that we wished to destroy had been laid in ashes, we fol lowed the route of our retreat towards Centreville. In the confusion of the moment, and the increasing darkness of the night, I had become separated, with several other members of the Staff and a number of couriers, from General Stuart, with no hope of finding him until morning, so we bivouacked in a small pine grove in the neighbourhood of Centreville, which place had already been passed by the greater portion of our troops. 28th and 29th August. At an early hour of the following day we set out to join General Stuart at Sudley s Mill, a place about eight miles north of Manassas, where Jackson s corps was drawn up in line of battle, expecting a fresh attack of the enemy, and where the prisoners taken during the last few days, about 1800 in number, were collected ; but the indefatigable Stuart had already started, at the time of IN CHASE OF GENERAL STUART. 141 our arrival, with his cavalry upon a new enterprise in the enemy s rear, leaving orders for me to follow him to the village of Haymarket. I pushed forward im mediately with Lieutenant Dabney and two couriers, several of the other members of the Staff being obliged to remain behind on account of the weary condition of their horses, and soon discovered that the journey we had to perform was an exceedingly difficult one. Since General Stuart had left Sudley s Mills, several hours before our own departure from that place, the position of the hostile army had been a good deal changed, the left wing having shifted more to our right, and the cavalry patrols were crossing the country in every direction, so that at many points of our progress we were informed that bodies of Federal horse had passed along but a few minutes before our approach. About two o clock in the afternoon there was a heavy cannonade and continuous musketry-fire heard in the direction of Jackson s position, announc ing that the enemy had commenced their attack; but, at the same time, we heard a cannonade in the direction of Haymarket, and believing Stuart to be there at work, I regarded it as my duty to continue my march. Very soon, however, we heard firing all around us, and I was convinced that we had been misled by the sound, and the great number of narrow unfrequented bridle-paths in the woods. As it was 142 DANGERS OF OUR SITUATION. impossible to decide where we should find friend or foe, our situation became a very critical one. About dusk we discovered in a small opening before us a negro on horseback, who had no sooner seen us than he galloped off in hurried flight, but was overtaken after a short chase by one of our couriers. It was difficult to make him believe that we were not Yankees, and his delight was indescribable when at last he recog nised us as friends. He told me that a squad of Federal cavalry was at that moment engaged in pil laging his master s house, which he pointed out to us not more than three-quarters of a mile distant that he had saved himself on one of the horses in the stable that the enemy were all around us and that Haymarket was occupied by them in strong force. Of Stuart and his cavalry the faithful negro had not seen or heard anything. Being perfectly at a loss, and nearly cut off from our army on all sides, I resolved to attempt returning by the same route we had come, and, protected by the darkness of the fast- coming night, to endeavour to rejoin Jackson s men. Silently we rode along the narrow lane for several hours, each one of us fully conscious of the danger of our situation, when suddenly the tramp of a body of horsemen sounded right in front of us a scouting party, as we could scarcely doubt, of the Federal cavalry. I explained to iny companions that there ABOUT TO CHARGE OUR FRIENDS. 143 was no choice left but to cut our way through. Our plan hastily formed was this. The two couriers were to ride on either side of Dabney and myself, and to fire right and left with their revolvers, leaving us to open the way in the centre with our sabres. The advancing party having now arrived within twenty- five steps from us, I gave the customary order, " Halt ! one man forward ! " and, this being disregarded, the loud command, " Charge ! " Just at this moment several voices cried out, " That is Major von Borcke ! halt, halt : we are friends ! " which at once checked our furious onset, and we found, to our great surprise and delight, and amid hearty laughter on all sides, that we had been on the eve of attacking the remain ing part of General Stuart s Staff and escort, who had also been separated from the General, and, like our selves, were in search of him. We heard now that the way to Jackson, who had repulsed the enemy after a sanguinary conflict, was perfectly unobstruct ed, and that one of our cavalry regiments, the 1st Virginia, was encamped a couple of miles farther to the rear. Thither we at once determined to ride, that we might refresh our weary horses, and seek rest for ourselves for the few remaining hours of the night. We joined General Stuart early on the morning of the 29th at Sudley s Mill, where Jackson had estab- 144 FRESH ATTACK BY THE ENEMY. lished his headquarters in a building which was used, at the same time, as an hospital for several hundred of the wounded of the previous day s battle. Stuart was exceedingly amused at our story, and laughed very much at the adventure of the night before, confessing, however, that it was through his fault that I had become involved in the difficulty. At seven o clock on the morning of the 29th the attack was renewed by General Pope, who tried his best to crush Jackson before Longstreet, who was rapidly approaching with his strong corps, could arrive. As old Stonewall had already gone to the front at the time of my arrival, I was sent to him by General Stuart to get orders for the disposition of the cavalry ; and to my question at starting, " Where shall I find General Jackson?" my chief replied, with a smile, "Where the fight is hottest." So I galloped forward over the battle-field, still strewn with the dead of yesterday s conflict, towards a point where twenty pieces of our artillery, concentrated into one battery, were hotly engaged with an equal number of Federal guns. Here I felt sure of finding Jackson himself. The Yankee batteries were firing much too high, throwing their shot and shell in rapid succession upon a piece of soft swampy ground about a quarter of a mile beyond our position, over which I must ride if I did not choose to make a long cir- ADVENTURE IN A BOG. 145 cuit around it. My horse had already been sinking several times a little in the bog, when suddenly the ground beneath him, which was covered with a treacherous surface of verdure, gave way entirely, and my brave bay sank till half his body was buried in the morass. I leaped from his back just in time to gain a secure footing myself, but every effort to extricate the animal was in vain. Meanwhile shells were plunging and bursting nearer and nearer to me, throwing upon myself and horse a heavy shower of mud and dirt, excited by which, and not a little in sulted, the noble beast made renewed exertions to get free, each time sinking deeper and deeper in the mire. I had already decided to abandon my steed and execute my orders on foot, when a body of our infantry marching by came very readily to my as sistance, and, by dint of spades, ropes, and poles, managed to liberate the animal, which emerged from the bog perfectly black, and trembling in every limb, as I jumped again into the saddle. "Without further accident I reached General Jackson, who, looking at me with astonishment, said, with his quiet smile, " Major, where do you get your dye ? I could never have believed that a bay horse might be changed so quickly into a coal-black one." Then, upon my ex plaining my mission, he gave me orders for Stuart, who was to operate with his cavalry on the right VOL. I. K 146 THE ENEMY IN OUR REAR. flank, and hold the enemy in check until Longstreet could take his place. On my return to Sudley s Mill I found everything changed, and great excitement prevailing there. Two brigades of the enemy had suddenly appeared in our rear, just where our provision and ammunition trains had been stationed. General Stuart had only a small portion of his cavalry and one battery of his horse- artillery at hand, but he was making every effort to save the trains, which were of the first importance to our army. There was the greatest confusion possible among the waggon-drivers: many of whose teams were " hitched on," and were driving off at the top of their speed; others had to be held back by main force to the performance of their duty, and made to put the horses to the waggons. All this time a rat tling hail of the enemy s bullets was falling all around us. The quartermaster in charge of the trains, and many others, had already been killed. A little coolness and energy on the part of our com mander, however, soon wrought a great improvement in the situation. Our sharpshooters were quickly dismounted and placed behind a fence, where they received the enemy with a very well-directed fire; while Pelham, who had come up at full gallop with his guns, threw from a favourable position such a deadly shower of grape and canister upon the DANGER OF THE POSITION. 147 vancing lines of the foe, as brought them suddenly to a halt. Having been ordered to place the right wing of our sharpshooters, I was brought very conspicuously to the notice of the enemy as the only man on horse back at this part of the field, and several bullets had already whistled past me in uncomfortable proximity to my person, when one of the Yankee marksmen sent a ball, to my infinite annoyance, crashing right through a box of regalia cigars which, it may be re membered, I had tied to the pommel of my saddle as my part of the spoils of the sutler s waggon taken at Manassas Plains. I was just expressing my displea sure in pretty round terms, and directing the atten tion of some of our men to the impudent fellow who had fired the shot, when General Stuart rode up and directed me to ride in full haste back to Jackson, and make report of the state of affairs, and order, in his name, the first troops I should meet on the way to his immediate assistance. After a rapid gallop of a few minutes I met two brigades of A. P. Hill s division, which I ordered to proceed at a double-quick to the point of danger. Very soon I encountered General Hill himself, to whom I made the necessary explanations, and who at once proceeded in person to the threatened posi tion. Meanwhile the cannonade had become fearful, 148 COOLNESS OF JACKSON. more and more batteries had joined in the action, and from a hundred pieces of artillery the thunder of the battle roared along our lines. In the dense smoke that enveloped the field, and amid the burst ing of innumerable shells, it was not easy to find General Jackson, whom I discovered at last sitting comfortably on a caisson, quietly writing his de spatches. After I had made my report, I remarked to the General that it had been very difficult to find him, and that this was rather a hot place for him to be in. "My dear Major," he replied, "I am very much obliged to you far the orders you have given. Hill will take care of the enemy in our rear. I know what they are; there cannot be more than two brigades of them. And as for my position here, I believe we have been together in hotter places before." The great hero then calmly resumed his writing, cannon-shot ploughing up the ground all around him and covering his MS. with dust, so that, like one of Napoleon s generals under similar circum stances, he was in no need of sand to dry up his ink. In the mean time the trains had been saved, and the bold Yankees that had attacked our rear had been driven back with fearful loss, leaving the greater part of their number prisoners in our hands. It was now about mid-day, and the engagement had become general. The Federal Commander-in- THE ENEMY FIRING ON THEIR OWN WOUNDED. 149 Chief again and again attempted to break Jackson s line, but again and again his forces had to recoil with wasted ranks from the STONE WALL in front of them. We were pressing slowly forward on our right, where our horse-artillery, under the gallant Pelham, did excellent service. Our cavalry was also here actively employed, one regiment alone, the oth Virginia, under Colonel Eosser, taking 500 prisoners. Many of the enemy s wounded having fallen into our hands, we had erected a temporary hospital in a shady grove, near a cool clear spring, where several hundred of them had been received. It may have been that the enemy by accident fired too high, or they may have mistaken this group of men for a body of our troops, but suddenly a heavy fire was concentrated upon this point, and it was indeed a sickening sight to see shot after shot strike in among them, shell after shell explode over this dense mass of sufferers, who, with limbs shattered or lacerated by ghastly wounds, attempted to crawl out of the way, cursing their own friends for the agonies they had to endure. The enemy, finding that they could not dislodge us, did not renew their attack later than four o clock in the afternoon, and at five the advance of Long- street s corps made its appearance, amid loud cheer ing all along our lines. These troops took up their 150 ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS. position in line of battle on Jackson s right wing as fast as they arrived, and before sundown the last division of the corps, Hood s Texans, had come up, forming the extreme right of Longstreet s line. Yet farther on was Stuart with a portion of his cavalry Fitz Lee, with the larger part of his brigade, having been detailed to Jackson on the extreme left. Gen eral Eobert E. Lee had also now arrived, and the men of our army, throughout its entire extent, were cheered by the confident belief that on the following day a great victory would be gained for our arms. Shortly before dusk we had yet a brisk little cannonade between some Federal batteries and a section of the famous Washington Artillery, which occupied a space intervening between Hood s Texans and our own position. While this was going on, a body of Federal cavalry impudently trotted over an open field quite within range of our guns, which opening opportunely upon them, and dropping a shell or two that exploded directly among their ranks, the whole squadron scattered in every direction, amidst the derisive cheers of the gunners and all of our troops who witnessed their rapid disappearance. After nightfall the Texans became engaged in a very heavy skirmish, which sounded for some time like a general conflict, but which ended, without much loss on either side, in their driving the enemy from a FORCES ON EITHER SIDE. 151 small piece of ground in our front. Late in the night I was requested by General Stuart to bear him company in a little reconnaissance outside our lines, which came very near terminating disastrously, as on our return, in the thick darkness, we were received with a sharp but fortunately ill-aimed fire from our own men. The rest of the night w T e slept by the side of our guns, and as we could not unsaddle our horses, I had nothing for a pillow but a cartridge- box which I had picked up on the ground. 30th August. The two great armies were now in full force confronting each other. Each numbered from 50,000 to 60,000 men, though Pope s may have a little exceeded the latter number, as he had been drawing reinforcements from Alexandria, where his reserves of 20,000 men had been collected. The early morning and forenoon of this memorable day passed in comparative quiet, yet before set of sun was to be fought one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the war. From time to time the rattle of slight skirmishing sounded along the lines, as it always does when two hostile armies are brought so closely together, and at long intervals the boom of cannon broke, like a sullen warning, through the hazy, sultry air. On our right was a body of Federal cavalry operating with great audacity, and as some of their skirmishers approached our position with 152 TEXAN KIFLEMEN. what I regarded as excessive impudence, I deter mined (with the consent of General Stuart) to give them a lesson. At my request General Hood de tailed to me several of his Texan marksmen, who moved forward with alacrity and pleasure to this exciting little enterprise, crawling through the high grass and along the fences with the suppleness of serpents, in a manner that might have excited the envy of the cleverest Indian on the war-path. The Federal cavalrymen seemed not a little sur prised to see me, as being on horseback I was the only one of the party visible to them, and were evidently quite undecided what to do when I halted at a distance from them of about 200 yards. Among my riflemen, one had been pointed out to me as the best shot, who was a Prussian by birth, but who had lived for many years on the prairies of Texas. He was the first to fire. Eaising his rifle, he said to me with a certain pride, a smile lighting up his brown weather-beaten features, " Now, Major, you shall see what an old Prussian can do." An instant after wards the crack of the rifle was heard, and the fore most of the Yankees rolled in the dust, then a second victim fell pierced by the bullet of another Texan, and the bold body of Federal cavalry gal loped off as if a legion of demons were in chase of them, amidst the tumultuous shouts of Hood s men, PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE. 153 and of our own cavalry and cannoneers, who had been looking on with great interest. Unfortunately we could not lay hold of the riderless horses, which rapidly followed their vanishing companions ; but nothing could prevent my Texans from getting their spoils from the dead a booty, in their opinion, richly merited by them. About two o clock in the afternoon the oppressive stillness of the situation gave place to commotion and activity. Adjutants were galloping to and fro. General Stuart was hastily summoned to General Lee s headquarters, where Jackson and Longstreet were already in council with our Commander-in- Chief. Strong reserves were posted in the centre, and forty pieces of cannon were concentrated there. Our horse-artillery was in readiness for action ; and Colonel Eosser, who commanded the 5th Virginia Cavalry, but was an artillerist by education, had four batteries temporarily placed under his charge, with which he trotted to the front. Every one now saw that we were on the eve of great events, and a strange feeling of anxiety, as is often the case just before a battle, came over many a stout heart a feeling which can be compared only to the heavy sultry silence that precedes the thunderstorm. The greater part of the two hostile armies were sep arated by a narrow open valley of about three miles ]54 COMMENCEMENT OF THE ATTACK. in length and half a mile in breadth, shut in by two parallel ranges of wooded hills, which fell away on the left into a wide wooded plain occupied by the outermost divisions of Jackson s corps, and closed on the extreme right by overlooking heights, which were held by our horse-artillery. It had been reported to General Lee that the enemy had massed large forces opposite to his centre, or the lower part of the little valley just described, which induced him to suppose that General Pope had determined to try one of Napoleon s manoeuvres de force, and would attempt, by overwhelming numbers, to break through the centre in a sudden attack, trusting to dispose of the two wings easily thereafter. Our noble leader had not been deceived, and his measures to frustrate the plans of the enemy had been admirably concerted. About three o clock in the afternoon the close columns of the Yankees emerged suddenly out of the dark green of the opposite forest at a double-quick, five extended lines, at intervals of sixty yards, com prising at the least 15,000 men. Their colours were borne proudly aloft, and they 1 advanced across the open space before us in beautiful order. Nearer and nearer they came, each one of us looking on with hushed anxiety at the imposing columns which moved towards the Confederate position as a water spout moves over the deep. The silence was some- ITS BLOODY KEPULSE. 155 thing appalling, when, at the instant, forty pieces of artillery poured a withering shower of shells into the very midst of the advancing host, while, at the same time, their first line was received with a perfect sheet of fire from our triple infantry line concealed in the dense undergrowth of the forest. The artillery was in charge of Colonel Stephen D. Lee, and the accur acy with which the shells exploded in the very faces of the foe testified to the admirable service of the guns. It was as if an annihilating bolt out of the thunder cloud had let loose its fury upon those doomed men, who until now had been pressing onward like moving walls, and they now wavered and swayed to and fro as if the very earth reeled beneath their feet. Again and again roared the thunder of our guns, again and again deadly volleys sent their hail of bullets into the dense ranks of the enemy, until all at once this splendidly-organised body of troops broke in disorder, and became a confused mass of fugitives. The Fed eral officers did their best to reanimate them. With the utmost energy and courage they brought their men forward to three several assaults, and three times were they hurled back, leaving hundreds of their number dead and wounded on the plain. At last physical strength and moral endurance alike gave way before the terrible effect of our fire, and the whole force fled in disorderly rout to the rear, a flight 156 MOVEMENTS IN PURSUIT. which could no longer be checked. At this moment the wild yell of the Confederates drowned the noise of the guns. As far as the eye could reach, the long lines of our army, with their red battle-flags, lit up by the evening sun to a colour like blood, were breaking over the plain in pursuit. It was a moment indeed of the intensest excitement and enthusiasm. With great difficulty could the cannoneers be kept back to their pieces. Scarcely could we, the officers of the general Staff, resist the impulse to throw our selves with our victorious comrades upon the retreat ing enemy. Thus the running fight was kept up for nearly two miles, our men, flushed with success, driving every thing before them, and taking many prisoners. Sud denly, however, their headlong advance was vigor ously checked at the village of Groveton, situated on a range of hills, now held by the main body of Pope s army, from which more than 100 pieces of artillery hurled their terrible missiles upon the Confederates exposed in the open plain and exhausted by the pursuit. In their turn they staggered, halted, and fell slowly back ; but before the shouts of triumph of the Federals had died away, the onset was renewed and continued until we had brought the last man of our reserves into action. As the sun sank behind the heights of Manassas, the enemy, after a very gal- ADVANCE OF OUR CAVALEY. 157 lant struggle, was driven entirely from the field, retreating towards Centreville in great confusion, leaving behind them many thousands of dead, wounded, and prisoners, besides many pieces of cannon and regimental standards, and a considerable quantity of small arms. In the mean time our cavalry had been pressing forward on the right flank, driving the Federal horse with little resistance before them over a rolling wooded ground, from which we could see plainly the progress of the battle. Our horse-artillery, acting in concert with Kosser s four batteries, and advancing on a line parallel with that taken by the cavalry on the Groveton side, had been pouring a destructive flank-fire on the dense ranks of the Yankees. This fire was energetically returned by the numerous bat teries of the enemy, which, firing too high, threw their shells all over the woods through which we of the cavalry were passing, breaking and shattering trees and branches in every direction, and inflicting much injury on men and horses. I myself received several slight injuries from the splinters and flying limbs with which the air was filled, and made a very narrow escape from serious damage, as one of the enemy s shells exploded between my horse s legs, striking, strange to say, neither rider nor animal. After the taking of the Groveton heights, as the 158 DESPERATE CAVALRY FIGHTS. enemy was retreating in the direction of Centreville all except their cavalry, which fell back towards Manassas Plains our main line of battle had to move as on a pivot, the right wing advancing rapidly, and the whole standing nearly perpendicular to our former position. As the retreat led through a densely-wooded country, where cavalry could be of little use, only Fitz Lee s brigade joined our army in the pursuit General Stuart pushing forward with Kobertson s brigade to drive off the strong force of Federal cavalry which had been there brought to gether, and which would otherwise have operated successfully on our exposed flank. The 2d Virginia Cavalry, under the gallant Colonel Munford, was in the advance, and arrived at the plateau of Manassas before the two other regiments of the brigade had come up. Here they found the Yankee horse in far superior numbers, drawn up in two magnificent lines of battle, one behind the other. Without waiting for the arrival of their comrades, the brave fellows of the 2d, their intrepid Colonel at their head, threw themselves upon the foe. They succeeded in break ing the first line by their impetuous charge, but having been thrown into some disorder by the length of the attack, the second line of the enemy, using well its opportunity, made a counter-charge in splen did style, and drove them back in confused flight, OUE FINAL VICTORY. 159 shooting and sabring many of the men, the rallied Yankee regiments of the first line joining in the pur suit. At this moment we arrived with the 7th and 12th at the scene of the disaster, and, receiving our flying comrades into our ranks, we charged furiously the hostile lines, scattering them in every direction, recapturing all our men who had fallen into their hands, killing the commander of the entire force and many other officers, among whom was the Major who had given me such a run at Verdiersville, besides killing and wounding a large number of their soldiers, and taking several hundred prisoners and horses. The pursuit was not abandoned until we had chased them over the stream of Bull Eun ; and we heard later that the stampeded horsemen had continued their flight into the fortifications of Centreville. Our loss was comparatively small in killed, consisting mostly of wounded, among whom was the brave com mander of the 2d, Colonel Munford, who had received several sabre-cuts on the head. Night had now set in, and as we approached the field of battle on our return to the main body of our army, we found that fighting and pursuit had entirely ceased, darkness having at last checked our victorious progress. It was exceedingly unfortunate for the Confederates that the battle had been commenced so late in the afternoon, as two hours more of daylight JGO LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES. would have rendered the result of the day yet more disastrous to the Federal army. Their loss, however, during the several days fighting which terminated with the battle of Groveton, had been immense, amounting to at least 20,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 30 pieces of artillery, about 40,000 small arms, many standards, and uncounted stores of ammunition and provisions. The Yankee troops were totally demoralised, and had lost all confidence in their commanding general ; and the Government at Washington, not less than the whole people of the North, looked with the greatest terror and anxiety into the future. Our loss had also been heavy, esti mated in the last battle alone at 6000 in killed and wounded. Many a noble fellow breathed his last sigh for the South on the slippery heights of Groveton. The little military family of our own Staff had spe cially to grieve for the loss of one of our number Captain Hardeman Stuart, a nephew of our General, who had charge of the Signal Corps * of our cavalry. Poor Stuart, having been surprised with his party on * The Signal Corps is an institution peculiar to the American armies, organised for telegraphic communications between distant points by the waving of flags of various colours in the daytime, and of lights of various colours at night. It is somewhat similar to the old semaphore system, and in campaigning can only be employed to advantage in a hilly region of country, where the signals can be made from elevated spots. RECONNOITRING WITH STUART. 161 the morning of the 30th by a body of Federal horse, was only able to escape with two of his men, leaving their apparatus and horses behind. Eeaching the Confederate lines on foot just as the battle was com- mencing/and not being able to render more important service, these three heroes seized each one of the muskets which had been thrown down in large num bers by the enemy in their retreat, and joined the ranks of the 18th Mississippi infantry, which were just moving at a double-quick towards the Groveton heights. There they fell in glorious companionship after the regiment had captured several of the enemy s batteries. We encamped on the field of battle, and were occupied during the greater part of the night in carrying water to the wounded, and otherwise minis tering to the wants of the sufferers to the extent of our ability. We rested but a few hours after the fatigues of Groveton, and I was roused at peep of day by Gene ral Stuart, who desired me to accompany him on a little expedition to reconnoitre the position of the enemy. It was a dark cloudy morning, and a sharp wind drove a drizzling rain, which had been falling throughout the night, right in our faces, so that we found the ride through the small pine thickets that lay in our way exceedingly disagreeable. Of the enemy we could discover nothing ourselves. From VOL. I. L 162 A NIGHT HIDE. our scouts, and from the Federal prisoners that were still coming in every half-hour in squads of eight or ten, we learned that the army of General Pope had made a halt in and around Centreville. I was now asked by General Stuart to ride over to Jackson s headquarters, on the left of our lines, to make report and carry him important papers, and to proceed thence yet further to the left to Sudley s Mill, with orders for General Fitz Lee with his brigade, which had bivouacked there during the night, to march at once along the Little River turnpike in the direction of Fairfax Court-house, to a point where General Stuart himself, with Robertson s brigade, taking a short cut across the fields, would join him in the afternoon. The headquarters of Jackson were at least five miles distant on our extreme left, and I had to ride along the entire line of our army, which at this mo ment was somewhat irregular. As the surface was much broken and covered with dense forests, I ran a narrow hazard of losing my way, and was compelled to make frequent inquiries of the different bodies of troops I passed en route. My appearance in the saddle was not a little bizarre, as I pushed onward through the rain, which still continued to descend soakingly. For protection against the storm I had wrapped myself up completely in my black oil-cloth cloak, at the same time turning down the wide brim TAKEN FOR A YANKEE. 163 of my slouched hat so as wholly to conceal my face. If these precautions kept me comparatively dry, they made it difficult for any one to distinguish me from a Yankee cavalier, and thus involved me in a ridicu lous adventure, which might have had a tragical re sult. I had been questioning an infantry quarter master as to the whereabouts of General Jackson, and my interlocutor, forming some grave suspicions from my appearance and foreign accent, took his measures accordingly. A few minutes after I had left him, two men on horseback came up, placing themselves on either side of me, and commenced a conversation which could not have been more impertinently in quisitive if they had learned to ask questions in Con necticut. I very soon wearied of this cross-examina tion, and so informed my companions, adding that if they desired anything at my hands they might ex press themselves fully. Whereupon they made polite apologies, declaring that they desired nothing beyond the pleasure of my company ; but as at this moment three other horsemen came riding towards us, their manner underwent a sudden change, and they de manded my surrender as a Yankee, and called upon me to hand over to them any papers that might be in my possession. Exceedingly annoyed at this, I threw open my oil-cloth cloak, disclosing my grey uniform, and said to them, with some disgust, that if 164 MY IDENTITY CERTIFIED. they still doubted my confraternity, one or two of them might ride with me to General Jackson s head quarters, when they would soon be convinced of their mistake ; but that under no circumstances whatever would I expose to their inspection important papers which had been committed to my charge, and that, if need were, I would defend them with my life. This, however, wrought no change of opinion in my pertinacious accusers. They replied that any stranger might tell the same story ; and that, as for my grey coat, it was a common Yankee trick to assume the Confederate uniform it was just what a spy would naturally do. Losing all patience, I now drew my shining Damascus blade, and, driving my spurs into the flanks of my steed, I separated myself by a sud den leap from my disagreeable companionship, and continued in a quiet walk upon my journey. The quartermaster s troopers were taken completely by surprise by this determined movement, but they drew their revolvers, arid, as if undecided what steps to take in the matter, slowly followed me at the dis tance of twenty or thirty yards. Fortunately I soon met an officer of my acquaintance, who was exceed ingly diverted at my predicament, and quickly satis fied my would-be captors of their error. I was still so provoked, however, that I sent my card to the suspicious quartermaster, inviting him to meet me SURPRISE OF A PICKET. 165 at General Stuart s headquarters, where I should be most happy to give him a good lesson for his future conduct. But he never came, and I never heard of him again. After a long and weary ride over the battle-fields of the last few days, which were still cumbered with the unburied corpses of the slain, I at last found Jackson, who was just returning with General Robert E. Lee from a little reconnaissance beyond the Stone Bridge over Bull Run. Here they had been fired at by the advance pickets of the enemy, but had for tunately sustained no injury. They received me very kindly, and laughed at the recital of my recent adventure ; but our interview was a short one, as I had to hasten after General Fitz Lee, who had already been ordered by Jackson to proceed with his com mand in the direction of Fairfax Court-house, and was thus several hours ahead of me. A disagreeable gallop through the intricate bridle-paths of the forest enabled me to overtake our horsemen at the end of five or six hours. They had just come to a halt, as our advanced-guard had surprised and taken to the last man a picket of the 2d U.S. Cavalry, regular army, and two of our squadrons were on the point of starting to attack the Yankee picket reserves, who, having no idea of our approach, had bivouacked carelessly in and around a farmyard about a mile and a half higher up 166 OLD COMRADES IN ARMS. the road. Fitz Lee had been a lieutenant in the 2d U.S. Cavalry* before the war, and he was greatly de lighted at making prisoners in this way of many of his old comrades. For myself, being badly in want of a new horse, the steed I then bestrode having been very nearly broken down by the fatigues of the cam paign, I joined with alacrity and pleasure the attack ing detachment. There was but little fighting to be done. We rushed so suddenly and unexpectedly upon the Yankee reserves that they had not even time to mount, and two full companies with their officers fell into our hands. We captured also their horses, from among which I lost no time in exchanging a noble bay for my own worn-out animal. The officers gave their parole not to escape, and were treated by us with the utmost courtesy, being allowed to ride their own horses, and accompany our Staff at the head of the column. They had served in former days both with Fitz Lee and Stuart ; and it was curious, as an illustration of the war, to hear these quondam com- panions-in-arms talking and laughing over the olden time. Late in the afternoon we were joined by Stuart with Eobertson s brigade, and continued our march towards Fairfax Court-house. * General Robert E. Lee had been the Lieutenant -Colonel of this fine regiment, and many other Confederate officers had formerly served in it. ATTACK OF A WAGGON-TRAIN. 167 We had been informed by our scouts that a large waggon-train of the enemy was moving on a parallel turnpike two miles distant from us, in the same direction with our column, and the shades of night were just closing in upon us when the heavy rum bling of the convoy, which was several miles in length, became distinctly audible. As the escort protecting this train consisted of several brigades of infantry, General Stuart did not regard it as prudent to hazard a direct attack, and concluded to pay them only a distant salutation. This was very handsomely done by our horse-artillery, which, being well posted on an eminence, soon began to perform great execu tion on the long line of waggons, whose white tops we could see, through the dusk of evening, winding slowly along the road like a gigantic snake. The confusion in a few minutes became bewildering, as the balls from our guns went crashing through the heavily-laden vans, and the loud cries of the drivers vainly endeavouring to get out of range commingled in tumultuous din with the disorderly commands of the officers of the supporting force, who did not seem to know from what quarter to expect the attack, or how to meet it ; and by the time they had formed their line of battle, and were pushing bravely forward upon our position, we had proceeded already several miles upon the back-track towards the small 168 A MIDNIGHT VISIT. village of Chantilly, which we reached about 10 o clock, and where our cavalry encamped for the night. Some six miles distant from Chantilly in very unsafe proximity, it must be admitted, to the enemy s lines lived on their plantation a family who were old and dear friends of Stuart. Finding himself in their neighbourhood, and not having seen them for a considerable time, our General could not resist the opportunity afforded by our night s halt in bivouac of paying them a visit, and the members of his Staff determined to keep him com pany. A brisk canter through the dark woods brought us about midnight to the mansion, where all were fast asleep except two ferocious dogs that tried unsuccessfully to resist our entrance to the immediate grounds. Stuart proposed that we should arouse the slumbering inhabitants with the dulcet- notes of a serenade ; and the serenade was at tempted ; but the discordant voices that joined in the effort sounded so very like the voices of the wild Indians in their war-whoop, that the proprietor, at once awakened and fully persuaded that his peace ful residence was surrounded by a party of maraud ing Yankees, carefully opened a window and begged most anxiously that the building and the lives of its inmates might be spared, promising that he would do his best to satisfy our demands. His FURTIIEK PREPARATIONS. 169 surprise and delight, when at last he recognised " Jeb " Stuart s voice, cannot be described. In a few minutes the whole household, young and old, were aroused, and we remained talking with our kind friends, until the morning sun, stealing through the curtains of the drawing-room, reminded us that it was time to be off. And so, after a hasty but hearty breakfast, we took leave of the hospitable family and rode back to our command. Meanwhile the Federal army had halted in the neighbourhood of Fairfax Court - house, and was there throwing up intrenchments. Our Generals, however, did not suppose that they really intended to make a stand at that point, and their further retreat towards Alexandria was confidently expected. As they had received strong reinforcements from Alexandria and Washington, General Lee did not deem it advisable to press them vigorously the day after the battle of Groveton. Our own army had suf fered severely in fight and from fatigue during the re cent continuous engagements and marches, and fresh troops from Gordonsville and Richmond were hourly looked for. Our men, therefore, had been employed only in burying the dead, and collecting the ample spoils of victory. The small arms lying about every where were picked up and cleaned. Thus the morn ing of the 1st of September passed off quietly enough. 170 AN AMBUSCADE. Stuart and I rode off to Jackson s corps, which was stationed at Ox Hill, and found Old Stone wall with his outposts very much amused at the effect of the rifle practice of some of his marksmen upon a squad of Yankee cavalry who had been advancing imprudently, and were just galloping off in a hurry across an open field. About noon the cavalry received orders to proceed cautiously along the road to Fairfax Court-house, Jackson s corps following at a short distance behind. The beautiful weather of the early morning had now changed into a drenching downpour of rain, and our column marched slowly onward, the 5th Virginia in the lead, with whose commander, Colonel Rosser, I was riding in front of the regiment. We were discussing our late fights and adventures, when suddenly the few men who formed our extreme advance and were riding a few rods ahead of us, came back at full gallop, and at the same moment rattling volleys from the thick pine-woods which lined the turnpike on either side sent a shower of balls over our heads. We had fallen into an ambuscade, which, if the Yankees had waited a little longer before firing, might have turned out very disastrously for us ; but as only the head of our column was visible to them, and as they fired much too high, the damage done was inconsiderable, only a few men and horses being PREPARATIONS FOR ATTACK. 171 wounded. The order to wheel about was quickly given and quickly executed. Volunteering to ride back and report to General Stuart, I galloped rapidly to the rear, the 5th Virginia following in haste, and the Yankees still delivering their fire, which was now wholly ineffective, the bullets clat tering through the forest. Two pieces of our horse- artillery, which had been detailed to the 5th, and which had loitered a little in the rear, I brought to a halt on a slight eminence in the road, and ordered to open fire as soon as the road was clear of our cavalry, the main body of which I arrested. A few minutes afterwards, I met Jackson and Stuart, who had been summoned to the front by the firing and the halting of the column. Old Stonewall made his dispositions with his usual celerity. He ordered Stuart to move along the by-roads towards Fairfax Court-house, and ascertain if the Federals were only making a demonstration, or if this was a general advance. For himself he was determined to stop the farther progress of the Yankees at once, and before we had turned off into the dark narrow path through the woods, the leading division of his corps had formed line of battle, and, advancing at double- quick, was soon hotly engaged with .the enemy. The rain was still pouring in torrents. The ap pearance of our column as it made its tortuous way 172 THE ENEMY AGAIN DEFEATED. through the dripping woods was not inspiriting, nor was its temper as buoyant as it might have been under happier auspices of sky and surroundings. The rattling of musketry and the roar of the cannon ade on our left becoming every moment louder and fiercer, we could not but entertain some anxiety as to the result, for in case of Jackson s defeat, our situa tion would be rendered exceedingly precarious. Late in the evening, however, our patrols and scouts re ported the bulk of General Pope s army in full retreat towards Alexandria ; and the approaching darkness making our further advance impracticable, General Stuart determined to return. We were warranted now in believing that Jackson had been victorious, but as we had no information of the enemy s posi tion, or of the strength of the force they had sent against him, it was necessary to march back with great circumspection. After several false alarms, we reached an outpost a little past midnight, wet and chilled to the very bones. Jackson s fight had been a sanguinary one, but the Yankees had been driven back with heavy loss, leaving behind them their dead and wounded, and 1000 of their number as prisoners in our hands. Among their dead were two Generals, one of whom, the famous warrior Phil Kearney, had years before left an arm on one of the battle-fields of Mexico. His body was respectfully taken care of, RENEWED CAVALRY-FIGHT. 173 and sent, with all military honours, into the Federal lines under flag of truce the next day. We pitched our camp in a dense pine-grove near Chantilly, and for the remainder of the night were occupied in drying our drenched garments by the heat of roaring wood-fires. On the morning of the 2d September we were agreeably surprised by the arrival of Hampton s splendid brigade, which had been retained on picket duty on the James, Chicka- hominy, and Pamunkey rivers, and our loud cheering was heartily responded to by the dashing horsemen of the Carolinas and Mississippi, who had long been anxious to meet the enemy under the lead of the gallant Stuart. As yet they had seen no fighting under his direct orders. Their desire was very speedily to be gratified. The main body of the Federal army had retreated towards Alexandria, but a strong cavalry force with horse-artillery still held Fairfax Court-house and its neighbourhood, and Stuart had been directed to drive them off. The sun of the following day had just begun to exert its reinvigorating power upon our shivering limbs when we again set out for action. In the ad vance were Hampton s brigade, with the flying artil lery attached to it, and the latter soon became hotly engaged with some of the enemy s batteries. From point to point we drove the Yankees slowly before 174 A PARTING SALUTE. us, until late in the afternoon they offered more de termined resistance on a ridge about two miles in front of the Court-house. Hampton was now ordered to make a little circuit to the left to take the enemy in flank, and as soon as we heard the thunder of his guns we pressed forward with Fitz Lee s force, driving the Yankees in rapid retreat from their position. Stuart and I reached the abandoned heights, far ahead of our troops, just in time to see the long blue lines of the Federals trotting through the village, and their track marked by blazing farmhouses to the right and left in the fertile fields around it. The General, justly exasperated at the sight, turned round to me and said, " Major, ride as quick as you can, and bring up some of Pelham s guns at full gallop, that we may give a parting salute to these rascally incendiaries." Not less eager than he, I reached the artillery in a few minutes, and, getting the pieces into position without loss of time, we sent several shells with so much accuracy into the rear of the hostile column that, leaving their dead and wounded, they galloped off in the greatest confusion. The magnificent lines of Hampton s brigade now appeared in brisk pursuit on the left, our Virginia horsemen, under Fitz Lee, had just joined us, and every one burned with the desire to throw himself forward upon the enemy. Stuart and myself took the FINAL RETREAT OF THE YANKEES. 175 lead : waving our battle-flag, which I had taken from the standard-bearer, high over my head, I echoed the loud yell of our men that came thunder ing after us, our artillery meanwhile firing shot after shot, which hurtled through the air above us ; and so we entered the village of Fairfax Court-house at the moment that the last of the Federal cavalry, in headlong flight, galloped out on the opposite side. It was a moment of the wildest joy and excitement. The delirious joy and gratitude of the inhabitants, who for more than a year had been under Yankee rule, cannot be described when I planted the Con federate colours upon a little open space in the centre of the village, and thus took formal possession of it again. As night was approaching, and we knew, from the freshness of their horses, there was little chance of overtaking the fugitive Yankees, only two squadrons were sent in pursuit of them, and the rest of our command halted and encamped around the Court-house. Amid all the confusion and intoxication of the hour I did not lose the op portunity of capturing a very good and well-equipped Yankee horse that was galloping about riderless, his master having been killed by a shell from our artil lery. One gets a sharp practical eye for such things after a little experience of active warfare. General Stuart established his headquarters at the 176 A KENEGADE VIRGINIAN. house of a citizen whose daughter he had previously known, and regarded as a young lady of very ardent patriotism. Her subsequent conduct did not justify this opinion. In a playful imprudent manner the General had bestowed upon her a sort of honorary commission upon his Staff, which caused her to be arrested at a somewhat later period by the Federal authorities ; but long before the termination of the war she managed to marry a Yankee officer, and took the oath of allegiance to the Northern Govern ment, thus doubly discrediting the title of Virginian. After half an hour s rest, Stuart requested me to ride with him to the headquarters of General Jackson, who had bivouacked only a few miles from the Court-house. A rapid gallop soon accomplished the distance, and we arrived just in time to partake of his simple supper, consisting of coffee and corn- bread.* At the conclusion of the repast, the night being already far advanced, we accepted General Jackson s invitation to sleep for the few hours till * This article of food formed so much the most considerable part of our commissariat during the whole of my campaigns, that it may be well to explain that in America "corn-bread" invari ably means bread made of Indian meal, and not of wheat flour. The Virginians are especially skilled in its preparation, and the old negro cook of the planter s family used to produce several varieties of this bread which were exceedingly palatable and nutritious. GENERAL JACKSON. 177 dawn beneath his small tent-fly. Wearied out by the exertions of the previous day, I was still deeply wrapt in slumber when I felt the pressure of a light touch on my shoulder, and a mild voice said to me, " Major, it is time to rise and start." Before I was yet fully awake, my caller placed a basin of water and a towel on a camp-stool near my head, and con tinued, " Now, Major, wash quickly ; a cup of coffee is waiting for you, your horse is saddled, and you must be off at once." To my utter surprise, I now discovered that my attentive servitor was the great Stonewall himself the light touch had been given by the iron hand, and the soft voice was that which had been heard in short energetic sentences so often amid the tumult of battle. I shall never forget the smile that broke over his kindly face at my amaze ment in recognising him. General Stuart was himself already in the saddle, and in a few minutes we galloped back to the Court house, the newly-risen sun just touching the tops of the tall hickory-trees, and the whole forest exhaling the most delicious odour, for the delight and refresh ment of only such " early birds " as ourselves. Half an hour after our return to the village, our whole command was mounted and on the march to the little town of Drainsville. We rode in advance with Hampton s brigade, which had some slight skirmish- VOL. I. M 178 ENTHUSIASM OF THE INHABITANTS. ing with small bodies of Federal cavalry that from time to time made their appearance, but were driven back with little difficulty. The part of Virginia through which we were passing abounds with deli cious peaches, and as this fruit was just ripening, it was a very grateful attention in the proprietors of the different farms and orchards on the road to in vite us to partake of it freely. At one point of our day s march there came out to the highway, from a neighbouring mansion which was decorated with the Confederate flag, a little cavalcade, consisting of an old gentleman with grey hair, and three very pretty daugh ters. Galloping up to the column, the old gentleman addressed himself accidentally to Stuart, begging that he would be good enough to point out the famous cavalry leader whom he and his fair daughters were so anxious to see. Stuart, after having maintained for a while his incognito, at last acknowledged that he was himself the man, and the surprise of pater familias and the blushing confusion of the young ladies, amused us not a little. They all insisted upon our stopping for a short time at their house, where luncheon had been prepared for the General and Staff; and I must admit that, in my breakfastless condition, I awaited Stuart s consent, which was only hesitatingly given, with some impatience. Soon after this we witnessed a most touching AFFECTING SCENE. 179 scene. At the portico of a modest, cheerful dwell ing by the roadside, there stood, as we rode along, an elderly lady in deep mourning, who held by the hand a fair-haired boy of about fifteen years of age, and who asked of the General that she might be per mitted to bless our battle-flag. Having invoked the favour of heaven upon our colours in a manner as ear nest as it was unaffected, she told us that she was a widow who had lost already two sons in the war, but that she was ready to sacrifice her last child for the sacred cause of her country. The eyes of the boy brightened up, and his fist was clenched at this ; and tears fell down on our beards as we turned the heads of our horses towards the passing column. During the afternoon we rode over the ground, in the imme diate neighbourhood of Drainsville, where Stuart in the year 1861 had fought his first fight. He showed me with pleasure the different positions which he and the enemy had occupied, and explained how dif ferently he would have acted at that time, had he been favoured with the benefit of his present ex perience. We encamped in and around Drainsville, our headquarters being established in the ample garden of a hotel in the centre of the village. Here, for the first time since we had left Hanover Court-house, were we enabled to reinforce our very dilapidated 180 A DAY OF REST. wardrobe from our long-missed portmanteaus, which we found in the waggons belonging to the cavalry staff. The following day was one of strange, blessed, uninterrupted quietude at Drainsville, the first day of rest after three w r eeks of continuous hard fighting. I have no power to convey the feeling of enjoyment with which, after a refreshing bath and the invest ment of the outward man in clean clothing from head to foot, I lay stretched upon my blanket be neath the shade of a wide-spreading hickory-tree. The day was delicious. The breeze came to me burdened with the fragrance of the latest summer flowers, lifting gently my hair, and whispering to me from the swaying branches overhead. Even the horses seemed to join in the general lassitude of the camp. They lay around us in the deep rich grass, which they were too lazy to crop, the very types of perfect physical satisfaction. And so we rested at headquarters the officers, the soldiers, the negroes, the horses, the mules, all wrapped in the dolce far niente which marked the termination of our eventful summer campaign in Virginia. CHAPTER VI. THE AUTUMN CAMPAIGN IN MARYLAND GRAND BALL AT URBANA START FROM URBANA FIGHTS NEAR FREDE RICK AND MIDDLETOWN MARCH TO HARPER S FERRY FIGHT AT CRAMPTON S GAP EXCITING TIME IN PLEASANT VALLEY SURRENDER OF HARPER S FERRY MARCH TO SHARPSBURG BOMBARDMENT OF SHARPSBURG THE BAT TLE OF SHARPSBURG OR ANTIETAM DAY AFTER THE BATTLE, AND RECROSSING THE POTOMAC. GENERAL LEE had now decided not to attack the enemy in their strong fortifications around Alex andria, but boldly to carry the war into the enemy s territory, or at least into the fertile plains of Mary land. Many advantages, it was hoped, might be secured by this policy. For a considerable period he would be able there to subsist his army, relieved from the necessity of protecting his lines of com munication for supplies. The confident belief was also entertained that our army would be increased by 20,000 to 25,000 recruits, who were supposed to be only awaiting the opportunity of taking up arms against the Federal Government. Being so rein- 182 RENEWED PREPARATIONS. forced, our commander -in -chief doubted not that he might easily strike a blow against Baltimore, or even Washington, or transfer the theatre of military operations across the border into the rich agricul tural region of Pennsylvania. On the morning of the 5th September there was again presented throughout the Confederate camps a scene of bustling activity. Every regiment was preparing for the march, officers were riding to and fro, and the long artillery-trains were moving off along the turnpike, their rumbling noise combining with the rattle of the drums and the roll of the bugles to wake the echoes for miles around. Our direction was northward, and as we rode onward towards the little town of Leesburg, inspirited by this fact, our horses exhibiting new life from yester day s repose, many a youthful hero looked forward to his triumphant entry into the Federal capital, or to a joyous reception at the hands of the fair women of Baltimore, whose irrepressible sympathies had been always with the South. After a march of several hours the column reached Leesburg, and the streets of the village were at once so compactly filled with troops, artillery, and wag gon-trains, that General Stuart determined to make a detour with his cavalry, which had been halted about a mile distant, in preference to proceeding ARRIVAL AT LEESBURG. 183 through the place. It was necessary, however, for the General to repair for final instructions to the headquarters of General Lee in the town, and in this ride he was accompanied by his Staff. Leesburg, the county seat of Loudouri, is a town or village of about 4000 inhabitants, some four miles from the Potomac river, and, as might be readily supposed from its proximity to the border, was alter nately in the possession of the Yankees and the Confederates, having undergone a change of masters several times during the war. General Lee s head quarters was set up in the commodious dwelling of a prominent citizen. Jackson and Longstreet had both already arrived there, and our great commander was soon engaged in a council of war with his lieutenants. While this conference was going on, I went across the street, with several other members of the Staff, to partake of an early dinner at the invitation of an old gentleman who lived directly opposite headquarters. Our venerable host had some time before been paralysed, and now spent the greater part of every day in a cane chair of immense pro portions, seated in which he received us. This chair so big as to resemble rather a summer-house or a cottage came, through the chances of war, to a violent comico-tragical end. Some months after our 184 A CHAIR AND ITS OCCUPANT. visit, during one of the numerous fights that took place around Leesburg, our excellent old friend was seated in his favourite fauteuil, patiently awaiting the result of the conflict, when suddenly a shell crashed through the ceiling of the apartment, and bursting immediately under the chair of cane, tore it to atoms. The attendants, after recovering from their fright, looked around for the mangled remains of its late occupant. Strange to relate, the old gen tleman had sustained not the slightest injury, and could complain of nothing beyond the somewhat rude manner in which he had been tossed upon the floor. About two o clock in the afternoon we received orders to move on, and after a dusty and very much impeded march of two hours, winding through infantry columns, and compelled frequently to halt, Ave reached the Potomac at White s Ford, where the cavalry were to cross. The banks of this noble river, which is of great width at this point, rise to the height of about sixty feet above the bed of the stream, and are overshadowed by gigantic trees of primeval growth, the trunks and branches of which are enwrapped with luxuriant vines, that, after reaching the very top, fall in graceful streamers and festoons to the ground, thus presenting tangles of tender verdure rarely seen in the forests of Europe. PASSAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 185 At White s Ford the Potomac is divided into two streams by a sandy strip of island in the middle. This island is half a mile in length, and offered us a momentary resting-place half-way in our passage of the river. It was, indeed, a magnificent sight as the long column of many thousand horsemen stretched across this beautiful Potomac. The evening sun slanted upon its clear placid waters, and burnished them with gold, while the arms of the soldiers glittered and blazed in its radiance. There were few moments, perhaps, from the beginning to the close of the war, of excitement more intense, of exhilara tion more delightful, than when we ascended the opposite bank to the familiar but now strangely thrilling music of " Maryland, my Maryland." As I gained the dry ground, I little thought that in a short time I should recross the river into Virginia, under circumstances far different and far less in spiring. The passage of the Potomac by the cavalry column occupied about two hours, and was attended with some difficulty to our artillery, as the water in many places rose quite up to the middle of the horses bodies. Having safely accomplished it, we continued our march towards the little town of Poolesville. The inhabitants of Maryland whom we met along the road, with some exceptions, did not greet us quite 186 OUR RECEPTION IN MARYLAND. so cordially as we had expected, this portion of the state being less devoted than others to the Confede rate cause. It was different, however, at Poolesville. We reached this place about nightfall, with Fitz Lee s brigade ; but just before entering it, our advanced- guard had a brisk little engagement with a squadron of Federal cavalry stationed there, which they dis persed by a sudden attack, killing and wounding several, and capturing thirty prisoners, with an equal number of horses. We remained in Poolesville about an hour, and in this brief space the enthusiasm of the citizens rose to fever heat. The wildest and absurdest questions were eagerly asked by the honest burghers concerning the strength of our armies, our intended movements, &c. &c. A number of young men became so much excited that they immediately mounted their horses and insisted upon joining our ranks. Two young merchants of the village, sud denly resolving to enlist in the cavalry, announced the peremptory sale of their extensive stock of gro ceries upon the spot for Confederate money. Our soldiers cleared out both establishments during the hour, to the last pin. Soldiers, on such occasions, are like children. They buy everything, and embar rass themselves with numberless articles which very soon afterwards are thrown away as useless. I my self could not resist the temptation of purchasing a ARRIVAL AT URBANA. 187 box of cigars, a parcel of white crushed sugar, some lemons, and a pocket-knife, in the possession of which treasures I felt as happy as a king. We bivouacked for the night about two miles from Poolesville, where we were fortunate enough to get an abundant supply of clover, hay, and Indian-corn for our horses. The following day we pushed on to the village of Urbana. On our march thither we saw, on the top of an isolated mountain of considerable height (known as the " Sugar Loaf"), a Yankee signal- station, where a company in charge were making signals to some of their colleagues at a distance with great rapidity. A small detachment was imme diately sent after these industrious fellows, and speedily returned, bringing with them several officers and men, and an entire apparatus of beautiful in struments. We entered Urbana about noon. Around this place the cavalry had orders to encamp. My own instructions from General Stuart were to estab lish his headquarters, and afterwards to seek him at the headquarters of Jackson, who had bivouacked near the town of Frederick, eight miles farther on, having crossed the Potomac at fords higher up than the point of our passage, and by a forced march out stripped us by this distance. Urbana is a pretty village of neat white houses, situated half-way between Poolesville and Frederick, 188 ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. in the midst of a smiling and prosperous country. The simple arrangements for our headquarters were quickly made, a few tents were pitched in the garden of a modest dwelling in the very centre of the village, the horses were picketed around, and in a few minutes the smoke rising from a dozen or more camp-fires gave pleasing assurance that the negroes were busy with their kettles in the occupation of all others most suited to their genius and temper the prepara tion of dinner. Unfortunately I could not wait to profit by the results of their culinary talent, and be fore my comrades of the Staff had commenced their meal I was trotting along the broad turnpike towards Frederick. This town, which has a population of about 15,000, occupies a charming site in one of the most fertile valleys of Maryland, and is approached from Pooles- ville by a road lined on either side by rich estates, whose mansions are built round with the green ver andahs of the South. At the point where the road sweeps suddenly down from a higher elevation to the vale of the Monocacy the view is really grand. Well-tilled fields stretch away for miles to purple ranges of mountains in the far distance ; in the middle of the plain lies the city, with its domes and steeples, and in the intermediate space flows the brawling, limpid stream of the Monocacy, spanned ASPECT OF FREDERICK TOWN. 189 by lofty bridges and the noble viaduct of the Balti more and Ohio Kailway. Frederick was a depot of supplies for the Federal army during the war, and in a strategetical point of view was a place of consider able importance. Jackson s corps had taken the town completely by surprise, and a portion of the troops stationed there had been captured, besides two hospitals containing several hundred wounded men, and immense stores of medicines, provisions, and equipments. As Gene ral Stuart, always uncertain in his movements, was not at Jackson s headquarters, and was supposed to have gone into the town, I determined to ride there myself in the hope of finding him. Entering the good old city of Frederick, I found it in a tremen dous state of excitement. The Unionists living there had their houses closely shut up and barred; but the far greater number of the citizens, being favourably disposed to the Confederate cause, had thrown wide open their doors and windows, and wel comed our troops with the liveliest enthusiasm. Flags were floating from the houses, and garlands of flowers were hung across the streets. Everywhere a dense multitude was moving up and down, singing and shouting in a paroxysm of joy and patriotic emotion, in many cases partly superinduced by an abundant flow of strong liquors. 190 I AM TAKEN FOR JACKSON. Every officer who wore a plume in his hat was immediately taken for Jackson or Stuart : all aver ments to the contrary, all remonstrances with the crowd, were utterly useless. The public would have it their own way. So it happened that I was very soon followed by a wild mob of people, of all ages, from the old greybeard down to the smallest boy, all insisting that I was Jackson, and venting their ad miration in loud cheers and huzzas. Ladies rushed out of their houses with bouquets. In vain did I declare that I was not Jackson. This disclaimer, they said, was prompted by the well-known modesty of the great hero, and afforded them the surest means of recognising him. The complication grew worse and worse every minute. To escape these annoying ovations I dismounted at last at a hotel, but here I was little better off. It was like jumping into the mill-pond to get out of the rain. The proprietor of the establishment being a German, many of Ger- mania s sons were there assembled, immersed in beer and smoking like so many furnaces. I am quite sure that most of them were very decided Yankee sympathisers, but as a grey uniform was right among them, and many others were not far off, they talked the hottest secession, and nearly floored me with their questions. One who had seen Jackson s col umns on the march, affirmed they numbered not a NEW DISPOSITION OF THE CAVALRY. 191 man less than 300,000. Another was only in doubt as to the day and hour when we should victoriously enter Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. All were sure that 30,000 Marylanders were ready to follow in the next few days our invincible army, a large proportion of whom were at that mo ment in Frederick, waiting only for arms, &c. &c. I was exceedingly glad to break away from all this and get back to Urbana, there to rest my weary limbs on the soft carpet of grass at headquarters. As it was evident that we should be stationed at Urbana for some days, General Stuart, in order to establish a regular line of outposts, separated the different brigades of his command. Fitz Lee s was sent to the little town of Newmarket, about ten miles off ; Eobertson s, under Colonel Munford, was ordered to the neighbourhood of Sugar Loaf Mountain ; while Hampton s remained in the immediate vicinity of Urbana. The following morning we were waited upon by the dignitaries of the place, and received an invita tion for dinner from a Mr C., with whom and his plea sant family we soon became intimately acquainted. There were several very charming and pretty young ladies staying at Mr C. s house, and among them one from New York, a relation of the family, on a visit to Urbana, whom General Stuart, from her warm outspoken Confederate sympathies, jokingly called 192 A PLEASANT EVENING. the New York Eebel. In the agreeable conversation of these ladies, in mirth and song, the afternoon of our dinner-party passed lightly and rapidly away; and then came night, queenly and beautiful, with a round moon, whose beams penetrating the windows sug gested to our debonnair commander a promenade, which he at once proposed, and which was carried nem. con. Leaving to our fair friends the choice of their partners, we were guided by them to a large building, crowning the summit of a gentle hill on the edge of the village, from which a broad avenue of trees sloped downwards to the principal street. This building had been occupied before the breaking out of the war as an academy, but was now entirely deserted and dismantled, and our footsteps echoed loudly as we walked through its wide, empty halls, once so noisy with human voices. Each storey of the house had its ample verandah running round it, and from the highest of these we had a magnificent view of the village and the surrounding country. The night was calm, the dark blue firmament was be sprinkled with myriads of stars, and the moon poured over the landscape a misty bluish light that made it all look unreal. One might have thought it a magical scenic effect of the theatre, or been carried back in imagination to the Thousand and One Nights of Eastern fable, had not the camp-fires of our troops PREPARATIONS FOR A BALL. 193 and the constant neighing of the horses reminded him of the realities by which he was surrounded. We were indulging in the dreamy sentiment natural to the hour, when the gay voice of Stuart broke in " Major, what a capital place for us to give a ball in honour of our arrival in Maryland ! don t you think we could manage it?" To this there was a unanimous response in the affirmative, which was especially hearty on the part of the ladies. It was at once agreed that the ball should be given. I undertook to make all necessary arrangements for the illumination and decoration of the hall, the issuing the cards of invitation, &c., leaving to Stuart the matter of the music, which he gladly consented to provide. A soldier s life is so uncertain, and his time is so little at his own disposal, that in affairs of this sort delays are always to be avoided ; and so we deter mined on our way home, to the great joy of our fair companions, that the ball should come off on the following evening. There was great stir of preparation at headquarters on the morning of the 8th. Invitations to the ball were sent out to all the families in Urbana and its neighbourhood, and to the officers of Hampton s bri gade. The large halls of the Academy were aired and swept and festooned with roses, and decorated with battle-flags borrowed from the different regiments. VOL. I. N 194 ITS COMMENCEMENT. At seven in the evening all was complete, and already the broad avenue was filled with our fair guests, pro ceeding to the scene of festivity according to their social rank and fortune some on foot, others in simple light " rockaways," others again in stately family coaches, driven by fat negro coachmen who sat upon the box with great dignity. Very soon the sound of distant bugles announced the corning of the band of the 18th Mississippi Infantry, the Colonel and Staff of the regiment, who had been invited as an act of courtesy, leading the way, and the band playing in excellent style the well-known air of Dixie. Amid the loud applause of the numerous invited and uninvited guests, we now made our grand entrfo into the large hall, which was brilliantly lighted with tallow candles. As master of the ceremonies, it was my office to arrange the order of the different dances, and I had decided upon a polka as the best for an animated beginning. I had selected the New York Eebel as the queen of the festival, and had expected to open the ball with her as my partner, and my surprise was great indeed when my fair friend gracefully eluded my extended arms, and with some confusion explained that she did not join in round dances, thus making me uncomfortably ac quainted for the first time with the fact that in America, and especially in the South, young ladies A DISAGREEABLE INTERRUPTION. 195 rarely waltz except with brothers or first cousins, and indulge only in reels and contre- dances with strangers. Not to be baffled, however, I at once ordered the time of the music to be changed, and had soon forgotten my disappointment as to the polka in a very lively quadrille. Louder and louder sounded the instruments, quicker and quicker moved the dancers, and the whole crowded room, with its many exceedingly pretty women and its martial figures of officers in their best uniforms, presented a most strik ing spectacle of gaiety and enjoyment. Suddenly enters an orderly covered with dust, and reports in a loud voice to General Stuart that the enemy have surprised and driven in our pickets and are attacking our camp in force, while at the same moment the sound of shots in rapid succession is distinctly borne to us on the midnight air. The excitement which followed this announcement I cannot undertake to describe. The music crashed into a concordia discors. The officers rushed to their weapons and called for their horses, panic-stricken fathers and mothers endeavoured in a frantic way to collect around them their bewildered children, while the young ladies ran to and fro in most admired despair. General Stuart maintained his accustomed coolness and composure. Our horses were imme diately saddled, and in less than five minutes we were 196 THE FOE REPELLED AND FESTIVITIES RESUMED. in rapid gallop to the front. Upon arriving there we found, as is usually the case in such sudden alarms, that things were by no means so desperate as they had been represented. Colonel Baker, with the splendid 1st North Caro lina regiment, had arrested the bold forward move ment of the Yankees. Pelham, with his guns in favourable position, was soon pouring a rapid fire upon their columns. The other regiments of the command were speedily in the saddle. The line of battle having been formed, Stuart gave the order for a general attack, and with great rage and fury we precipitated ourselves upon the foe, who paid, with the loss of many killed and wounded, and a consider able number of prisoners, for their unmannerly in terruption of our social amusement. They were pur sued in their headlong flight for several miles by the 1st North Carolina, until, a little past midnight, they got quite out of reach, and all was quiet again. It was about one o clock in the morning when we got back to the Academy, where we found a great many of our fair guests still assembled, awaiting with breathless anxiety the result of the conflict. As the musicians had never dispersed, General Stuart or dered them again to strike up ; many of our pretty fugitives were brought back by young officers who eagerly volunteered for that commendable purpose ; " MINISTERING ANGELS. 197 and as everybody was determined that the Yankees should not boast of having completely broken up our party, the dancing was resumed in less than half an hour, and kept up till the first glimmer of dawn. At this time the ambulances laden with the wounded of last night s engagement were slowly approaching the Academy, as the only building at Urbana that was at all suited to the purposes of an hospital. Of course the music was immediately stopped and the dancing ceased, and our lovely partners in the quadrille at once became " ministering angels " to the sufferers. Captain Blackford and I went down with our New York Eebel to an ambulance in which there was a poor fellow fearfully wounded by a ball in the shoul der. His uniform jacket was quite saturated with blood, and the tender white hands of our charming friend had just become fairly employed in the com passionate office of stanching the wound and cooling the inflammation with applications of cold water, when her strength broke down and she fainted away. When after a few minutes she had recovered, we did our best to persuade her to go home; but with a courage equalling that of the warrior on the field of battle, she replied, " I must first do my duty." This she did bravely and tenderly, until the wounded man, greatly relieved by her ministrations, expressed his gratitude with tears streaming from his eyes, and 198 THE DAY AFTER THE BALL. begged her now to take care of herself. Blackford and I accompanied the noble creature to the house of Mr C., and left her with the highest admiration for her tenderness and fortitude. The sun was high in the heavens when we rose from our camp pallets the following day. The sol diers slumber was naturally profound after the fa tigues and adventures of a night when the ball-room had been so quickly deserted for the battle-field, and sanguinary conflict had in a moment succeeded to the dance. My first duty was to send back to the respective regiments their battle-flags, and I made all haste to discharge it. For once our troops had been called into action without their colours, and already many anxious inquiries had been instituted as to their safety. General Stuart and myself were invited to dine with the doctor of the place, at whose pleasant dwell ing we passed a few hours most delightfully. The universal verandah looked out upon the same beauti ful landscape that we had admired from other points, and afforded us a cool retreat for cigars and conver sation. I became very much interested here with a young vagabond Indian about fourteen years of age, who was pertinacious in his efforts to sell me a pet grey squirrel which he had tamed. As the fellow seemed homeless and masterless, I had some idea of DEPARTURE FROM URBANA. 199 taking him along with me as a servant, and perhaps might have done so but for the earnest remonstrances of General Stuart, who, from his life in the prairie, was well acquainted with the Indian character, and knew only too well what incorrigible thieves the Bed- skins always prove. At a late hour of the afternoon the air was startled by the thunder of distant cannon, and we soon re ceived a report from General Fitz Lee that he had been engaged in a brisk skirmish with the enemy s cavalry near the village of Barnesville. This, how ever, did not prevent us from spending the evening with our fair friends at Mr C. s, nor from paying them the compliment of a serenade. But the time of inac tivity for us was now soon to be over. TJrbana was not to be our Capua, and the second day afterwards we bade adieu to what a punning member of the Staff called its Urbana-ties with regret. One day more of rest at headquarters, the 10th, which gave some occupation, however, to Eobertson s brigade at Sugar Loaf Mountain, where Colonel Mun- ford engaged the Yankees in a sharp but unimportant skirmish. On the morning of the llth we received marching orders. The aspect of military affairs had undergone a sudden but great change. General M Clellan, who had again been intrusted by the Federal Government 200 M CLELLAN SUCCEEDS POPE. with the command of the Army of the Potomac, had collected together the remains of the army of the unfortunate Pope, and been largely reinforced by Burnside s corps from North Carolina, the troops around Washington, and the new levies. With a well-equipped and formidable force, he hurried for ward to the relief of the garrison of Harper s Ferry, which stronghold had been closely invested by Jack son. General Lee, with Longstreet s corps, had left the vicinity of Frederick, and was slowly retreating in the direction of Middletown and Boonsboro . The cavalry, as the rear-guard of our army, had orders to retard and embarrass as much as possible the forward movement of the enemy, and to follow slowly the road taken by General Lee. The fighting of the pre ceding two days had occurred with the cavalry of M Clellan, which was a full day s march ahead of the main body of his army. A steadily falling rain, which gave us some dis comfort in the saddle, added much to the dejection of spirits with which we got in readiness to move away from Urbana. About 11 A.M. Fitz Lee s brigade passed through the village on its way to Frederick ; Hampton s soon followed ; and only Eobertson s, under command of Colonel Munford, remained behind, cov ering the retreat, and holding in check, at a distance of about five miles from the place, the rapid advance COMMENCEMENT OF OUR RETREAT. 201 of the Yankee cavalry. Meanwhile I was kept riding to &nd fro directing the retreat in the name of the General, who, with the other members of the Staff, to my intense disgust, still lingered in the verandah with the ladies. About 2 P.M. our brave horsemen were pressed back by overwhelming numbers, at a point not more than half a mile from the village. The crack of the carbines was distinctly audible, and several shells, aimed too high, exploding just around the mansion, made it clear that the final moment of separation had indeed arrived. Great excitement now prevailed among the ladies, so soon to be again in the power of the detested Yankees, who, they had too much reason to fear, would punish severely the kindness and hospitality they had shown us. As for Mr C., he at once determined to ride off with us, and so we galloped out of the village, in the direction of Fre derick, amid the tears of women and children, who stood waving handkerchiefs to us as long as we were in sight. Ten minutes later, Urbana was in the hands of the enemy. Having crossed the Monocacy, we took up a new position on the opposite bank of that river. As the enemy did not advance that day beyond Urbana, the greater part of our cavalry encamped between that point and Frederick. About half a mile from the 202 CHANGED ASPECT OF FREDERICK TOWN. latter place we fixed our headquarters at the farm house of an old Irishman, who amused us very much with his " buthiful brogue," and with whose pretty daughters spirited Irish girls they were we had a lively little dance at night. Early the next day (12th September) our scouts and patrols reported the enemy slowly advancing in strong force on the turnpike from Urbana, and we received orders to retreat through Frederick over the mountains to Middletown, but to retard the Federal column as long as possible at Monocacy bridge, which was to be burned at the last moment. As they were moving so slowly that at 2 P.M. their advance-guard was not yet in sight, General Stuart rode with his Staff into Frederick, where we had been invited by several prominent citizens to dine. The appearance of the city had greatly changed since I had last seen it. The patriotic frenzy had completely subsided, and given place to an oppres sive anxiety ; most of the houses were shut up, and the inhabitants, with sorrowful faces, were wander ing about the streets, credulous of every idle rumour, and asking at every corner the most ridiculous ques tions. Such of them as sympathised with the enemy could ill conceal their satisfaction at his approach ; and one of these, a Mr F., was impudent enough to hoist a Union flag from the flat roof of his three- A TEEACHEROUS YANKEE. 203 storey house, where he might be seen making with it undeniable signals. Very much provoked at his treasonable conduct, I posted two of our best marks men on the opposite side of the street, sending at the same time my best compliments to Mr F., with the message that I had given my men orders to shoot him if for a minute longer he continued his offensive course. Federal ensign and ardent Yankee sympa thiser now disappeared very rapidly together, but I have every reason to believe that, later in the day, when we were compelled to leave the city in some haste, he expressed his thanks to me in a charge of buckshot, which rattled from the front door of his house around my head. Towards evening the enemy arrived in the imme diate neighbourhood of Monocacy bridge, and, observ ing only a small force at this point, advanced very carelessly. A six-pounder gun had been placed in position by them at a very short distance from the bridge, which fired from time to time a shot at our horsemen, while the foremost regiment marched along at their ease, as if they believed this small body of cavalry would soon wheel in flight. This favourable moment for an attack was seized in splen did style by Major Butler, who commanded the two squadrons of the 2d South Carolina cavalry, stationed at this point as our rear-guard. Like lightning he 204 GALLANT AND SUCCESSFUL CHAEGE. darted across the bridge, taking the piece of artillery, which had scarcely an opportunity of firing a shot, and falling upon the regiment of infantry, which was dispersed in a few seconds, many of them being shot down, and many others, among whom was the colonel in command, captured. The colours of the regiment also fell into Major Butler s hands. The piece of artillery, in the hurry of the moment, could not be brought over to our side of the river, as the enemy instantly sent forward a large body of cavalry at a gallop, and our dashing men had only time to spike it, and trot with their prisoners across the bridge, which, having been already fully prepared for burn ing, was in a blaze when the infuriated Yankees arrived at the river s edge. The conflagration of the bridge, of course, checked their onward movement, and we quietly continued the retreat, which had been begun by the main column, under the annoy ances only of a spirited shelling, which did us very little harm, and of an irregular fusillade kept up by bush-whackers and citizens from the houses. The country between Frederick and Middletown is charming. The finest view of it is obtained from the Middletown Path, at the highest point of a wooded spur of the Blue Eidge Mountains that separates the two wide fertile valleys which are named from these towns. We could not resist stopping for a short DEFENCE OF THE PASS. 205 time to look upon these beautiful and peaceful plains, which were so soon (in a few hours) to be the scene of an obstinate and sanguinary struggle. Our head quarters were now established at a farmhouse near Middletown, where that evening we very much enjoyed a plum-pudding, which had been hurled as a beneficent bomb at Captain Blackford by a philan thropic young lady of Frederick during our retreat through the streets of that city. The boom of artillery summoned us to the saddle at an early hour of the 13th, and we rode as rapidly as possible to the front, where Hampton with his brigade had been gallantly defending the Middle- town Path since daylight against vastly superior numbers of the enemy, and had, up to that moment, successfully repelled every attack. The position was extremely favourable for defence. No other passage to the right or the left led across the moun tain-spur, and our two batteries, posted to great advantage, played with telling effect upon the numer ous guns of the enemy in the open flat below, which, not being able to get the necessary elevation, proved almost harmless to us. Nevertheless it was evident that our small body of men would be soon obliged to give way before the overwhelming odds of the Yankees, who, just at the time we reached the spot, were preparing for a renewal of the assault under 206 VIEW OF THE FIELD FROM THE HEIGHTS. cover of an energetic fire from five or six batteries. At this juncture I was ordered by General Stuart to take one of our mountain howitzers very light guns, which often did excellent service upon difficult ground, and could easily be drawn by two horses and try to find an eligible place on our extreme left from which we could open fire with it upon the dense columns of Yankee infantry. With a good deal of trouble, and after we had been obliged several times to cut our way through the thick undergrowth, I found a little plateau, of perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and in a few minutes the rapid discharges of our little gun announced to General Stuart that I was at work. The extended view from this plateau, which was the loftiest point of the mountain, rising from 1500 to 2000 feet above the rolling country below, was strikingly beautiful under all favourable conditions of atmosphere, but was now animated in the extreme. Frederick lay before us, distinctly seen through the clear air of the morning. The valley beneath, stretch ing away from the immediate base of the mountain, was literally blue with the Yankees. All at once their long columns of infantry with a waving glitter of bayonets, their numerous bodies of cavalry with " many a flirt and flutter " of gay flags and pennons, their imposing artillery - trains with the sunlight CONTINUED ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY. 207 reflected from the polished brass pieces, and their interminable lines of waggons containing all the supplies for M Clellan s army, broke upon my sight. Directly beneath my feet the masses of the enemy were as busy as a swarm of bees. Two lines of sharpshooters were advancing in excellent style ; the cavalry galloped hither and thither, seeking to get out of range of our cannon, while their numerous batteries, under the galling effect of our fire, were every moment changing position. The fire of my howitzer from a point hitherto regarded as inacces sible, plunging at this short range with fearful execu tion into the compact ranks of the enemy, greatly augmented the commotion. Several batteries at once opened upon us, but so far overshot their mark that at every fire my cannoneers threw their kepis into the air with loud yells of derision. Meanwhile I had sent an orderly to General Stuart, reporting the state of affairs, and expressing my opinion that the time had come for our retreat. The General soon arrived upon the spot and gave orders for the withdrawal of the mountain howitzer ; but as he had not seen the lines of the advancing infantry skirmishers, who had already disappeared in the thick underwood below us, he did not share in my opinion as to the danger of our situation. The firing of small-arms now became louder and louder on our 208 WE ARE NEARLY CUT OFF. right, and seemed to proceed from a point even a little to the rear of the place we occupied. Annoyed at my continued remonstrances, Stuart at last said "Major, I am quite sure those shots come from our own men, who are firing at far too great a range ; ride over there at once and order them to reserve their ammunition until they can see the whites of the Yankees eyes." I knew very well that it was rush ing into a wasp s nest, but orders were to be obeyed, and, making my way as quickly as the nature of the ground would admit, I proceeded to the scene of action, giving my orders in a loud voice as I heard several men breaking down the tangled thicket near at hand. In a moment the bushes before me parted, and a Yankee, as blue as ever I saw one, emerged from them. At the same instant a bullet tore the bark from a tree behind me at a very few inches from my head, and several other tirailleurs made their appearance ; and I had just time to turn my horse and gallop back to General Stuart, who now fully credited my report, and made off with me as fast as our chargers could carry us over the rocky surface of the mountain. The Yankees, knowing very well that there was a noble game afoot, now advanced their whole line at a run, and with loud cries of en couragement, towards an open space over which we must ride, and where a shower of bullets fell around OUR CONTINUED RETREAT. 209 us, fortunately without touching a rider or a horse. The order for our general retreat was now given, and executed at a quick trot. I expected every moment to hear the roar of the Yankee artillery, which from the heights behind us must have inflicted very serious loss upon our column ; but General Hampton, with admirable foresight, had so well barricaded the roads that we were out of range before they had gained our former position. It was now two o clock in the afternoon, and as the fighting had commenced at four in the morning, we had for ten hours, with a few thousand horse and ten pieces of artillery, resisted the advance of the whole Federal army, with consid erable damage to them and little to ourselves. Near Middletown we took up a new position. The 1st North Carolina regiment, under Colonel Baker, and two pieces of artillery, were placed in front of the village, the other regiments and guns on the opposite side, behind a little stream known as Kit- tochtan Creek. The covered wooden bridge which spanned the stream was prepared with combustibles for destruction. General Stuart and myself rode forward a short distance in the direction of the enemy, whom we saw winding down from the moun tain and stretching out over the plain in a mighty moving mass of blue. The fight was soon recom- imenced. The thunder of cannon roared incessantly, VOL. I. 210 ITS DISASTERS. and as the enemy s guns had now the advantage of more favourable positions, which admitted of their being effectively employed in yet greater number, we suffered severely from their fire. At the same time the wings of the Yankee army, thrown rapidly for ward, overlapped us on either flank, and our brave North Carolinians were thus subjected to a most de structive cross-fire before General Stuart gave the order for retreat, which, in consequence of the mur derous tempest of shot and shell that raged around them, was not conducted in a very orderly manner. In my judgment our admirable General here betrayed a fault which was one of the few he had as a cavalry leader ; and the repetition of the error on several occasions, at later periods of the war, did us material damage. His own personal gallantry would not permit him to abandon the field and retreat, even when sound military prudence made this clearly advisable. There was no necessity whatever, here, for the safety of the main body, to sacrifice a smaller command, for we might have withdrawn with honoiifr long before the enemy s fire had so cruelly thinned our ranks. I was one of the last horsemen that galloped through the town, and had a painfully accurate sight of the confusion and destruction that attended the retreat. The Yankee artillery threw a withering THE BRIDGE PREMATURELY FIRED. 211 hail of shells along the main street of Middletown, from every by-street whistled the bullets of the sharpshooters, in our rear thundered the attack of the pursuing cavalry, while from the houses the Unionists fired at us with buck-shot and small- shot, and many fallen horses and riders impeded the road. The panic reached its height when we arrived at the bridge and found it blazing, through the premature execution of his orders by the officer in charge. Many of our horsemen leaped into the rapid stream and gained the opposite bank by swim ming. For myself, with many of my companions-in arms, I forced my horse through fire and smoke across the burning bridge, which, very soon after we had passed over it, fell with a loud crash into the water. The hotly - pursuing enemy were now received upon the opposite bank with a deadly fire from our well-posted sharpshooters, and showers of canister from our artillery, which brought them to a stop ; and after a heavy cannonade that lasted for more than an hoar, we continued our retreat quietly towards the South Mountain, in the direction of Boonsboro . The Federal cavalry managed the crossing of the Kittochtan with commendable expedition, and were soon again on our tracks, but the two pieces detached to our rear-guard kept them at a respectful distance by occasional discharges of grape and can- 212 DEATH OF GENERAL GARLAND. ister. We reached the part of the South Mountain known as Bradlock s Gap in the evening, and, just as we were taking another new position, were relieved by our infantry, which soon afterwards became hotly engaged with the enemy in a serious conflict. The foremost brigade of troops that re lieved us was commanded by a dear friend of mine, General Samuel Garland, whom I met riding to the front, in buoyant spirits and confident of success. Ten minutes later he fell a corpse while trying to rally his men, who had momentarily given way at the first assault of the enemy. He was killed in stantly, a bullet having pierced his brain. Hampton, with his brigade, was now sent in the direction of Harper s Ferry, and had several en counters on the way with the Federal cavalry, against which the Georgia regiment of his command made a most brilliant and successful charge near the little town of Burkettsville, led by the gallant Lieutenant -Colonel Young, who was unfortunately wounded. General Stuart and his Staff rode to Boonsboro , which we reached at nightfall, and where we rejoined a portion of Fitz Lee s brigade. Here we were greatly distressed at learning that the leader of our horse-artillery, Major Pelham, who had marched with Fitz Lee, had been cut off, and was a prisoner in the enemy s hands. He turned up, IMPOETANCE OF HAEPEE S FEEEY. 213 however, the next morning, having cut his way through the Yankee lines, and saved himself by his never-failing coolness and intrepidity. Our head quarters were established near Boonsboro , and we were glad enough to rest our weary limbs and ex hausted horses after the fatiguing work of the day. We moved on the 14th, making an early start, in the direction of Harper s Ferry, to reunite with Hamp ton s and Robertson s brigades, the latter of which had been already two days on the march for that point. Harper s Ferry is a stronghold of no little import ance, most picturesquely situated on the Virginia side of the Potomac, just where this noble river receives the bright waters of its tributary the Shenandoah, and, augmented in volume thereby, breaks through the Blue Ridge. Here the United States Govern ment had, many years before the war, established a very large arsenal and manufactory of small-arms. The Baltimore and Ohio Eailway runs along the Potomac past the place, crossing from the Maryland to the Virginia bank at the immediate point of con fluence of the two rivers ; and a railway, connecting Harper s Ferry with Winchester, skirts the margin of the Shenandoah, and reaches its terminus at the extensive wayside station of the great line of com munication between the Chesapeake and the Ohio. Around the workshops of the arsenal and the sheds 214 ITS SIEGE BY JACKSON. of the railways a little town had grown up, built partly upon a narrow tract of level ground but little elevated above the rocky bed of the Potomac, and partly upon a lofty hill looking down upon either stream. This eminence is itself commanded on the Maryland side by the towering cliffs of the Blue Eidge known as the Maryland Heights, a position which had been strongly fortified, for the obvious reason that whoever became master of it might with little difficulty obtain possession of Harper s Ferry and all that it contained. Jackson, after leaving Frederick with his corps, had crossed the Potomac with a large portion of it, and closely invested this stronghold, with its gar rison of nearly 13,000 men, on three sides. A divi sion of Longstreet s corps, under M Laws, had been sent to attack and shut it up on the Maryland side, and now occupied the fertile tract of country which is enclosed by the continuation of the Mary land Heights and the South Mountain spur of the Blue Eidge. The two ranges run nearly parallel for a little distance from the river, with an intervening space of about two miles in breadth, but the South Mountain branches off in the neighbourhood of Boonsboro , forming what is called the " Pleasant Valley." At Boonsboro , General Lee found himself, with POSITIONS OF THE CONFEDERATE FORCES. 215 the remaining portion of his army under Longstreet, confronting the bulk of the army of M Clellan, which was rapidly advancing to the succour of Harper s Ferry. The passes over the South Mountain were all held by us, and were easily defensible. General Stuart had orders with two of his brigades to unite with M Laws, and to reconnoitre and watch the enemy s movements, the other brigade, Fitz Lee s, having been detached from his command to the corps of Longstreet. We reached Pleasant Valley in the afternoon, and our cavalry encamping there, General Stuart and I rode over to the headquarters of Brigadier-General Pryor, who commanded the left wing of M Laws s division nearest to Harper s Ferry. General Pryor was just starting on a little reconnaissance, and we very readily accepted his invitation to bear him com pany. A proper degree of caution compelled us to go on foot. Creeping through the tall grass, we climbed the mountain occupied by our farthest out post, from the summit of which we had an unob structed view of the whole fortification. We could see the stir and bustle within the walls, mark the steps of each man, and even count the pieces of artillery. The look-out from this lofty perch would well have rewarded the toil of the ascent in the inactive time of peace ; but the preparation and 216 A GALLANT MIDDY. excitement of war, upon whose busy scenes we gazed in the distance, now combined with nature in her grandest mood to make the sight magnificent. At a later hour of the evening Stuart rode off to the headquarters of General M Laws, leaving me to await his return as General Pryor s guest at dinner. Among General Pryor s orderlies there was a hand some young fellow of about fourteen years of age who greatly interested me. He was a midshipman in the navy, who, making a visit to our lines at this exciting period, had volunteered his services, and had behaved on several occasions, as I was informed, with great gallantry. He was now galloping about on a little pony, and seemed highly elated with his temporary position. Two days afterwards the brave boy was killed in the battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam). About dusk we were joined again by General Stuart, and I was just about to ride away with him to select a convenient spot for our night s rest, when the thunder of cannon, which had been sounding all the evening from M Laws s right, grew fiercer and fiercer; and an orderly galloped up to us at full speed, reporting in a very excited manner that the enemy had repulsed our troops at Crarnpton s Gap, one of the passes of the South Mountain, broken through our lines, and already thrown several thou sand men into the valley, thus cutting us off com- A CAUSELESS PANIC. 217 pletely from Longstreet s corps. We started imme diately, as fast as our horses could carry us, for the point where the disaster had occurred. In a very short time we were called upon to witness a scene of the most mortifying panic and confusion. Hundreds of soldiers, many of them wounded, were arriving in disorderly array from the fight, while guns and caissons, huddled together with waggons and ambu lances, moving towards the rear, blocked up the road. We at once posted a strong guard along the road, with orders to arrest every man who was not too badly hurt to renew the conflict, and, taking the artillery with us, continued our ride. After about an hour s progress we reached the spot, where General C., an ex-politician and agriculturist, who had com manded the troops at Crampton s Gap, was vainly endeavouring to rally the remainder of his brigade. The poor General was in a state of the saddest excite ment and disgust at the conduct of his men. As soon as he recognised us in the dusk of the evening, he cried out in heartbroken accents of alarm and despair, "Dismount, gentlemen, dismount, if your lives are dear to you ! the enemy is within fifty yards of us ; I am expecting their attack every moment ; oh ! my dear Stuart, that I should live to experience such a disaster ! what can be done ? what can save us ? " General Stuart did his best to comfort and encourage 218 RECONNOITRING THE ENEMY. his disconsolate friend, assisted him in rallying his scattered troops, and quickly placed in position all the artillery. Then turning to me, he said, " Major, I don t believe the Yankees are so near at hand, but we must be certain about it ; take two couriers with you, and find out at once where the enemy is." My General was very fond of sending me on these ticklish expeditions, and much as I appreciated the honour thus paid me, I did not feel greatly obliged to him on this particular occasion, as I rode forward into the darkness, feeling that I should run a narrow chance of being shot by our men on my return, if, indeed, I escaped the bullets of the Yankees. Cautiously I proceeded, fifty yards, a hundred, two hundred yards, everything quiet; not a trace of the enemy: at last, after a ride of more than a mile, I discovered the long lines of the Federal camp-fires, where Messieurs the Yankees had halted, and were busily employed in cooking supper ; and at sixty yards distance I could see in the road a cavalry picket, clearly defined against the glare of the fires, horse and trooper, who seemed to have no idea of our approach. Leaving the hostile sentry undisturbed, we rode quietly back to our lines, where the Generals awaited my return with the great est interest and anxiety. In the mean time General M Laws had arrived with reinforcements, our line of battle was formed, and several batteries in favourable OUR PROSPECTS. 219 position were ready for action. As it was evident, however, that the enemy did not intend making any further forward movement until the next day, General Stuart and I soon galloped back to our cavalry, with whom we bivouacked during the remaining hours of the night. The air was sultry when at daybreak of the 15th September we marched towards the front, with hearts oppressed by the uncertainty of the events of the next few hours. Our position was indeed a perilous one : shut up in a narrow gorge, the garrison of Harper s Ferry, 13,000 strong (which, should Jack son fail in his siege, a matter to be decided before sunset, would inevitably fall upon us), in our rear, an enemy vastly superior in numbers on our front, we must gain the doubtful victory or perish in Plea sant Valley, the very name of which might mock our ruin. Every man felt this, and our lines, generally hopeful and cheery before an engagement, looked glum and desperately resolute to-day. The heavy silence of the march was broken only by the measured tramp of the column, the rumbling of the artillery- waggons, and the booming of the heavy guns from Harper s Ferry, which reverberated like rolling thun der through the surrounding mountains. General Stuart, who moved with the cavalry to the extreme left, ordered me to remain and establish 220 CAPTURE OF HARPER S FERRY. myself with twelve of our couriers on an elevation near our centre, from this point to reconnoitre the enemy s movements as much as possible, and to send him information every five minutes. About 10 o clock the Federals commenced to move ; their cavalry skirmishers advanced, and the lines of their infantry tirailleurs came in sight. The decisive moment had arrived, and every hand closed more firmly round its weapon. Already shots began to be exchanged, when suddenly a cry of joy, louder than the roar of cannon, commenced by our reserves and answered from one end of our lines to the other, brought delight to our hearts and carried despair to the foe, whose insolent advance it brought quickly to a halt "Harper s Ferry has surrendered to Jack son ! " In a few moments, an officer galloping towards us, his horse covered with foam and reeking with sweat, brought the official intelligence, which, passing from mouth to mouth with the rapidity of the wind, had already reached us by rumour. I at once sent a courier with the information to Stuart, and I had no occasion to enjoin upon him celerity in his movements. The faithful fellow speedily returned, and, with features lighted up by intense- gratification, said to me, " Major, that was the quickest and the happiest ride of my life." The enemy seemed completely paralysed by the SURRENDER OF ITS GARRISON. 221 shouts of our troops, and as we soon received re inforcements from Jackson s corps, and began to assume the offensive, they retreated rapidly along the road by which they had advanced. Stuart now came back to us, and was so delighted that he threw his arms round my neck and said, " My dear Von, is not this glorious? you must immediately gallop over with me to congratulate old Stonewall on his splendid success." Captain Farley, Captain Black- ford, and Lieutenant Dabney joined us, and after a short and rapid ride we reached the magnificent scene of our magnificent victory, just in time to witness the formal ceremony of the surrender of the garrison, a sight which was certainly one of the grandest I ever saw in my life. From what I have already said of Harper s Ferry, the reader who has never visited the spot may have learned that in regard to natural beauty it is ex ceeded by few localities on the surface of the globe. From the bed of the two rivers which here mingle their sparkling currents, the mountains rise pre cipitously to the height of several thousand feet. Within the fortifications is an extensive plateau, from which these bold headlands are seen in all their magnitude and majesty. Here the entire gar rison of 13,000 men was drawn up in imposing lines, presenting, with their well-kept equipments, their 222 VAST SPOILS CAPTURED AT IT. new uniforms and beautiful banners, a striking con trast to Jackson s gaunt and ragged soldiers, who formed opposite to them, and whose tattered gar ments and weather-beaten features showed only too plainly the hardships they had undergone. To the long roll of the drums, the two armies came to a "present arms," and then the Federal troops laid down their standards and weapons, which were at once taken possession of by our men. The spoils captured at Harper s Ferry were enormous. Besides this large number of prisoners, there fell into our hands 70 pieces of artillery, about 30,000 small- arms, and an immense quantity of ammunition, provisions, tents, waggons, ambulances, machinery in machine-shops, horses, and mules. Colonel Miles, the commanding officer at Harper s Ferry, a short time before the surrender, had lost both his legs by a cannon-ball, and died soon after sustaining this severe injury. A strong regiment of cavalry, numbering about 1100 men, had made good its escape the previous night by a road along the river bank, very little known, which M Laws, against Stuart s urgent advice, had neglected to picket. General Jackson appeared quite satisfied with his success, but when I congratulated him upon it, he said, " Ah, this is all very well, Major, but we have yet much hard work before us." And indeed we PREPARATIONS FOR BATTLE. 223 had. That same evening the troops were again on the march to Sharpsburg, where General Lee was rapidly concentrating his army, and where a great decisive battle was expected to be fought during the next twenty-four hours. We had yet to learn how great a misfortune was the escape of the cavalry regiment the nig][it before the surrender. During the night, under its bold leader, Colonel Davis, it came accidentally in contact with Longstreet s ord nance trains, capturing and destroying a great number of the waggons and stampeding the whole of the teams. Hiding over the plateau from point to point, 1 witnessed a ridiculous scene, which nearly proved tragical to a Yankee officer. Jackson had granted to the officers of the garrison permission to retain their side-arms and horses. Some of our men, ignorant of this fact, had just surrounded a Federal captain, summoning him to dismount and give up his arms. The captain, highly offended, had drawn his revolver from the holster, declaring, in a very excited manner, that he would kill anybody that approached him. He did not know with whom he had to deal, and did not see the uplifted musket of a wild-looking fellow from a Mississippi regiment who was just about to shoot him down. Fortunately I arrived just in time to save him by explaining to the soldiers the mistake they had committed. 224 NIGHT-SCENE ON THE FIELD. What with riding about the fortifications and look ing at this and that object of interest, the day wore quickly away, and it was five o clock in the afternoon when I fell in with Captain Blackford and Lieutenant Dabney and some of our couriers, who told me that General Stuart had gone off some hours before with Hampton s and Eobertson s brigades, proceeding along the tow-path of the canal on the Maryland side of the river to Sharpsburg, leaving orders for us to join him there during the night. We started immediately, and taking the shorter and more agreeable route on the Virginia side to Shepherdstown, where the river might be easily forded, and only a few miles from our destination, reached the ford after nightfall, where the scene presented to the eye was wild and beautiful beyond description. On either bank of the noble stream, here half a mile in width, had bivouacked the troops of Jackson s corps, whose thousands of camp-fires were reflected in the water, and threw a bright glare over the fantastic figures of the soldiers, bringing also into strange and vivid relief the gigan tic trees that edged the shore, with their swaying foliage and their gracefully pensile vines. In the ruins of a large mill which had belonged to a friend of mine, Col. A. E. Boteler, and which had been burned by the enemy, a Mississippi regiment had taken up its quarters, and I could not help being re- OUR POSITION AT SHARPSBUKG. 225 minded by the wild-looking long-bearded men, with their slouch hats, their blankets thrown over their shoulders, and their polished arms glittering in the red glow of the bivouac-fire, of the rude robber and gipsy of the olden time. We managed the fording of the Potomac without trouble or delay, and arrived late in the night at the little town of Sharpsburg. General Stuart had fixed his headquarters at the house of Dr G v where we stretched our weary limbs on the floor of the entrance- hall, using our saddles for pillows. 16th September, General Lee was now in readiness to meet the mighty Federal host. Longstreet having retreated from Boonsboro , where his corps had a severe engagement with the enemy s advance, towards Sharpsburg, had there united with Jackson s troops, which had come down during the night from Har per s Ferry ; and our army was in line of battle on the morning of the 16th, about half a mile in front of the town towards Antietam Creek, the right wing extending about a mile in a north-easterly direction, the extreme left resting on the Potomac. M Clellan, moving forward from Boonsboro , was still on the opposite side of the Creek, but his attempt to cross and the consequent battle were hourly expected. A mistake has been made here by several writers who had not the advantage of taking part in the events VOL. i. p 226 DESCRIPTION OF THE FIELD. they describe, in stating that none of Jackson s forces had effected a junction with Lee before the battle of Antietam. Our great leader had been too cautious to neglect the concentration of his troops, which had been partially accomplished by forced marches. A portion of Jackson s corps had, indeed, been left by the main body at Harper s Ferry, but they arrived on the field the night preceding the general engagement. M Laws s division, which had also remained behind, did not join in the conflict, by reason of the slowness of its commander, until the latter part of the day. General Stuart started on the morning of the 16th, the day before the great battle, with a part of his cavalry, on a reconnaissance up the Potomac, leaving me with ten of our couriers at headquarters, with orders to receive and open all reports and despatches addressed to him, and to forward any important in formation to Generals Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet. Sharpsburg is a pretty little village of perhaps two thousand inhabitants. It presented, during these memorable September days, a busy scene of military life. Waggon-trains blockaded its streets, artillery rattled over its pavements, orderlies were riding up and down at full speed. The house of Dr G., one of the largest in the place, was situated just opposite the principal church, and was still occupied by his hospitable family, who awaited with an indifference BOMBAEDMENT OF SHARPSBURG. 227 peculiarly American the momentous events that were so close upon them. About 11 A.M. the enemy began to throw shells into the town, which, being aimed at the church steeple, fell all around their dwelling in such perilous proximity that I felt it my duty to order the ladies into the cellar, as the safest place of refuge. This order they obeyed, but, impelled by feminine curiosity, they were running up-stairs every five minutes to witness the effect of the cannonade. I had frequent occasion during the war to observe how much stronger is curiosity with women than the fear of danger. Accordingly, while the fire was every moment growing hotter, it was not long before the whole of Dr G. s family were again assembled in the room I occupied. All at once, while they were look ing out of the windows at some wounded men carried by, a shell fell with a terrific crash through the top of the building, and sent them in precipitate flight to the security of the vaults. About noon the bombard ment became really appalling, and the explosion of the innumerable projectiles stunned the ear. Still deeming it obligatory on me to remain at my post, I was seated on the sofa engaged in writing in my journal, when a shell, piercing the wall of the room a few feet above my head, covered me with the debris, and, exploding, scattered the furniture in every direc tion. At the same moment another missile, entering 228 CONFUSION IN THE TOWN. the upper part of the house, and passing directly through, burst in the courtyard, killing one of our horses, and rendering the others frantic with terror. Regarding further exposure of my own life and the lives of my couriers as now unnecessary, I gave orders for our immediate departure ; but it was not easy, amid the blinding dust and smoke out of doors, to find my horse, nor, after I had found him, to get into the saddle, so furiously did he rear and plunge, as if fully conscious of the danger of his situation. In the street there was the greatest confusion. Dead and wounded men and horses lay about in every direction, in the midst of waggons and am bulances overturned in the hurry and anxiety of everybody to get out of the village, where cannon- balls whizzed incessantly through the air, and pieces of bursting shells, splinters of wood, and scattered fragments of brick were whirled about in the dense cloud of powder-smoke that enveloped all things. After an exciting ride of a quarter of an hour, during which my nerves were strained to the utmost, I gained an eminence beyond the town, and was happy to find that my followers, one and all, had, like myself, escaped death as by a miracle. My horse had been the only sufferer. A piece of shell had struck him in the right hind leg, and he went lame and bleeding. CESSATION OF THE FIRE. 229 Everybody was under the impression that this bombardment was the signal for a general battle ; but after the batteries all along the lines had been engaged in a spirited artillery duel, and on our right even the roll of musketry had been heard for some time, the din of conflict gave way to a dull, drowsy silence, interrupted only at intervals by a random cannon-shot booming through the hot evening air. With great difficulty I at last found General Stuart, late in the evening, at the headquarters of General Lee. He appointed to meet Captain Blackford and myself in an hour s time, at a church about two miles from Sharpsburg, to which place of rendezvous we repaired ; but the General came not. Having waited long for him, we finally rode off a short distance, and made our bivouac for the night on some stacks of straw, which seemed to offer the most comfortable spot for repose. 17 tk September. We obtained but little sleep. Occasional shots were fired all night in our neigh bourhood. To add to our discomfort, a fine drizzling rain, which began to fall about daybreak, wet us to the skin, and, chilled as we were, we had no break fast to reinvigorate us for the field. In the morning we discovered General Stuart, who had bivouacked quite near us, and, at his request, I rode with him along our line of battle, which stretched out, nearly 230 FORCES ON BOTH SIDES, four miles in length, over several of the little hills so frequent in this rolling country, and sheltered from the enemy s view by many patches of wood and extensive corn-fields. The strength of Lee s army was always over-estimated throughout the war, but more so at Sharpsburg than in any other great battle that he fought. I have it from our great commander s own lips that he had less than forty thousand men with him in the conflict; and as M Laws s division, numbering 7000 men, and some other small detached bodies of troops, did not join in the action until a late period of the day, he com menced this tremendous struggle with not more than 30,000 men, the Federal army, according to General M Clellan s own statement, amounting to not less than 90,000. Our force had been greatly reduced by the continuous fighting of the campaign, by the long and wearisome marches it had made, and the cruel hardships it had undergone. From these several causes it had happened that a great multitude of stragglers were left behind on the Virginia side of the Potomac, of whom thousands had been collected together in the immediate neigh bourhood of Leesburg alone. I could not help expressing to General Stuart, as we passed the thin lines of our ragged, weather-beaten soldiers, many of them without shoes, that I did not think our COMMENCEMENT OF THE BATTLE. 231 army equal to the impending contest, and that I felt great anxiety as to the result ; but he was in good hope, and said, with his accustomed cheerfulness, " I am confident that, with God s assistance and good fighting, we shall whip these Yankees badly enough." Jackson commanded our left wing, General Lee himself had taken charge of the centre, and Long- street commanded the right. Of our cavalry, Robertson s brigade, under Colonel Munford, was detached to the extreme right, Fitz Lee s and Hamp ton s were held in reserve on the extreme left, which, as before stated, rested on the Potomac. The fight ing commenced soon after daybreak, and was raging in full fury on the left with Jackson s corps at seven o clock in the morning. From the nature of the ground, our cavalry could take but little part in the active operations of the day ; but the indefatigable Stuart, always eager to be at the place of most imminent danger, had obtained from Jackson, who had unbounded confidence in him, the charge of the left wing of his corps, and having concentrated there about twenty-five pieces of cannon, consisting prin cipally of our horse-artillery, pressed boldly forward with his guns, and, by a most effective flank fire, did great damage to the enemy. The Yankees soon responded fiercely to this cannonade, and with such terrible effect that I was in constant anxiety for the 232 DESPERATE NATURE OF THE CONFLICT. life of my general, who was always w^here the car nage was greatest, and at whose side two of our best couriers had already been killed. The enemy concentrated the whole weight of his attack upon Jackson s centre, which for a time gave way, and was driven back through a large patch of forest that had been gallantly defended. But the grim Stonewall soon rallied his men, and, having been reinforced, drove back the Yankees in his turn for several miles with great slaughter. About mid day I was sent by General Stuart to our cavalry with orders that they should press forward, in cor responding movement with the infantry, up the bank of the Potomac. At the moment of passing the 3d Virginia Cavalry, as I was exchanging some friendly words with its gallant commander, Colonel Thornton, a piece of a shell tore off his left arm very near to the shoulder, from which wound he died in great agony a few hours afterwards. By the time I had returned to my general, the fighting in Jackson s front had ceased a little, and both the combatants seemed to be taking breath after the terrible struggle that had been maintained with such resolution for hours ; but on our right, where, up to this moment, all had been comparatively quiet, the firing grew louder and more continuous. Long- street, hard pressed by the superior numbers of the EESULTS OF THE BATTLE. 233 enemy, had been giving way slowly, but defending the ground, like a wounded lion, foot by foot, until, receiving reinforcements at the outskirts of Sharps- burg, he recovered his lost ground after a severe and sanguinary combat. The little town of Sharpsburg was unfortunately set on fire by the Federal shells, and a portion of it utterly destroyed ; and throughout the evening the sky was reddened by the glare of the conflagration. Our centre was much less engaged than the two wings, and the fighting there consisted mainly in a terrible cannonade, during which our guns, advan tageously posted, poured a most destructive fire into the enemy s ranks. In Jackson s front, the conflict was only moderately renewed during the later part of the day, and was carried on principally with artillery. Here, and elsewhere along the lines, all was going on so favourably for our arms, that we might well claim to be the victors when the sunset streamed over the ensanguined field, and the rapidly- following darkness put an end to the fearful strife. Every inch of the ground lost by Longstreet at noon had been recovered. Our centre had greatly gained ground. On our left the enemy had been pushed back for nearly two miles. And we remained masters of the entire field of battle covered with the enemy s dead and wounded. 234 LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES. The victory would certainly have been more com plete, had not General M Laws failed to obey orders in bringing his division of nearly 7000 men earlier into the fight, and by the tardiness of his movements to a considerable extent thwarted the combinations of his commander-in-chief. Our troops fought better than ever on this glorious day ; and it was astonish ing to see men without shoes, whose lacerated feet often stained their path with blood, limping to the front to conquer or fall with their comrades. The spoils of the victory were not great. A few prisoners and guns were taken. As for our loss, it had indeed been heavy, amounting to not less than 2000 killed and 6000 wounded ; including among the former, two general officers, Generals Branch and Starke. The Federals having been the assailants, their loss was yet more severe, reaching the terrible aggregate of 12,000 dead or disabled men. Their sacrifice of officers had been serious. Generals Mansfield and Keno were killed, and twelve other generals were among the wounded. Late in the evening, I re ceived orders from General Stuart to take with me a regiment of infantry and some squadrons of cavalry, and establish a double line of pickets on our extreme left, along the margin of the Potomac, there to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, and await the arrival of fresh troops to relieve my command, upon DESTRUCTION OF SHABPSBUEG. 235 whose coining I was to follow him to Sharpsburg. The night was far advanced when a brigade of in fantry took the place of my weary soldiers, who had fought all day, and the " small hours " had suc ceeded when with two of my couriers I entered the village. It was a sad spectacle of death and destruction, as seen by the light of the yet glowing embers of its habitations, the greater number of which had been swept away by the flames. The unburied corpses of men and horses lay on every side in the streets, while helpless women and children, who had lost their homesteads, were moving about amid the smouldering ruins seeking shelter for the night. The mansion of Dr G., after having been completely riddled by shells, had been consumed ; but a small summer-house in the garden had escaped injury, and here the family found a temporary refuge. The Doctor himself was quite calm and composed. He congratulated me on my escape, and said that he derived consolation from the hope that we should whip the Yankees as badly the next day as we had done already. As usual, General Stuart, having once separated himself from his aides, was not to be found, so for the remainder of the night I rested with my couriers in a small cow -stable, on the top of which we were fortunate enough to discover some hay for the horses. 236 "TAKING CAEE " OF PIGS AND POULTRY. Several shots fired in rapid succession about day light, very near to our little dormitory, roused us from sleep with the idea that the fighting had been renewed in the streets of the village ; but, on going out of the cow-stable, I found, to my surprise and relief, that they came from some of our men, who were amusing themselves with shooting the pigs and chickens, which, rendered homeless by the fire, were wandering about in a distracted condition. " Poor little things," said our troopers, with a dry sort of humour, " they have nowhere to go, and we ought to take care of them." Already, at several points among the ruins of the houses, commodious sheds had been hastily erected, and the savoury smell of roast meat, wafted to me on the fresh air of the morning, brought very forcibly to my mind and stomach the indisputable and melancholy fact that for more than forty -eight hours I had been wholly without food. This was indeed the case with the greater portion of our army, which, for several days preceding the battle, had been living on green apples and ears of Indian- corn picked up on the roadside and roasted. Never theless, I felt obliged to rebuke a Texan, who, only a few steps from me, had just rolled over, by a capital shot, a porker galloping across the street at sixty yards distance, for his wanton disregard of the rights of property. With a look of utter astonishment, he ASPECT OF THE BATTLEFIELD. 237 turned to me, and asked, " Major, did you have any thing to eat yesterday ? " and, upon my answering in the negative, said, " Then you know what it is to be hungry; I haven t tasted a morsel for several days." I had nothing more to say, and mounting my horse, I rode forward to the front, where our army, in line of battle, was momentarily expecting the renewed attack of the enemy. I found General Stuart much sooner than I had hoped for, on our left flank, and at his request rode with him over the battle-field to reconnoitre the enemy s lines. It was a sickening sight. None of the corpses had yet been buried, and in Jackson s front the Federal dead lay around in great numbers, while many wounded men still remained untended in their agony in out-of-the-way spots of the woods and corn-fields. The outposts of the two armies were separated from each other by only a few hundred yards, and frequent shots were exchanged between them whenever an enterprising fellow went forward to pick up a gun or strip a dead body upon the intermediate ground. After having completed our reconnaissance, and when several Yankee sharpshooters had rewarded our curiosity with the whizzing of their bullets, we proceeded towards the point where Jackson was sup posed to be, and found old Stonewall, near a battery of twenty-five guns, stretched out along a fence, and 238 PRESENTIMENT OF DEATH. enjoying the luxury of a cup of coffee, quite hot, which his trusty servant had prepared from the con tents of a Yankee haversack, and of which we were kindly invited to partake. General Lee soon arrived upon the spot, and leaving these three great men to their council of war, I moved off $, short distance, and, throwing myself at full length upon the soft turf, gave way to deep reverie. I had heard much and read much, in my own German and elsewhere, of the presentiment of approaching death, and had often speculated upon the matter, its verity, and the mental and physical conditions that might superinduce it, &c. ; but this morning I was taken hold of, rather than oppressed, by the con viction that I should be killed before night in the coming battle, and I should have regarded any one as a profane sceptic who had tried to argue me out of it, and prove the foreboding nonsensical upon philo sophical principles. Whether the famished state of my body, or the excitements of the last two days acting on the brain, had wrought the presentiment in the mind, it is not worth while to consider : certain it is that I made the most mournful entry in my note book, at which I cannot now look without laughing, and which is too absurd to be repeated here. I only revert to the fact to show that while in some instances presentiments of death are afterwards verified, in THE BATTLE NOT KENEWED. 239 others that we do not hear of, probably the greater number, they have no subsequent realisation. Hour after hour passed away in anxiety and watch ing for the enemy s attack, but the perfect quietude of the morning was interrupted only by a flag of truce sent in by the Yankees asking permission to bury their dead. This was of course granted, and the work occupied them until the afternoon, when it became evident that the battle would not be renewed, and that rny misgivings for the day had been utterly idle. My annoyance at having indulged them was greatly mitigated when, with the evening, came my negro, William, mounted on my beautiful little grey mule " Kitt," and, with a grin all over his black face, offered me tomatoes, apples, and roasted ears of corn, which he had promptly seized the earliest occasion of stealing from a neighbouring farm. In the mean time our great commander -in -chief had decided to recross the Potomac, and transfer his weakened army again to the soil of Virginia. Nothing could be accomplished by remaining longer in Mary land. Even had the battle been renewed with the most satisfactory results for our arms, General Lee had not men enough for the continued occupation of the country. General Lee has often been censured for having fought the battle of Sharpsburg at all; but he was compelled to do so in order that he might save , 240 PREPARATIONS FOR RETREAT. the immense booty taken by Jackson at Harper s Ferry, which was of the very greatest importance to us, and well worth a great sacrifice. Besides, it was not known how much the enemy had exhausted his strength in the conflict. Not until some time after wards did we learn from General M Clellan s own statement that there was but one single corps of the whole numerous Federal army that could well have been brought into action again. The retreat of our army was in preparation throughout the day, was commenced at night, and was executed in a masterly manner when one considers that it was conducted along a single road, that, except three hundred men who were too severely wounded to bear transporta tion, nothing was left in the enemy s hands, and that they were wholly ignorant of our disappearance until the next morning, when our entire army was on the Virginia shore. General Stuart started with his Staff about ten o clock at night, and I can safely say that the ride to the Potomac was one of the most disagreeable of my life. A fine rain, which had been falling all the evening, had rendered the roads so deep with rnud and so slippery that it was difficult to make any progress at all, and I fell with my horse not less than five times. The way was everywhere obstructed by waggon and artillery trains, and marching columns ; AGAIN IN VIRGINIA. 241 and the darkness was so great that one knew not where to direct his doubtful steps. General Stuart made a narrow escape from being crushed to death. His horse fell with him directly under the wheels of a heavy army waggon, which must inevitably have gone over him had I not fortunately been able to arrest its motion. The General was in great haste, and was calling out continually to those in front of him in somewhat angry tones, which were often an swered, to my great amusement, in a sufficiently rough manner by the soldiers and waggon-drivers, who did not recognise his voice. At last we reached the Potomac, crossed it in safety, and after moving about for some time in the darkness on the opposite bank, and being compelled to lead our horses over the rocky precipitous ground near Shepherdstown, came shortly before daylight to a halt, and sought on a wet but hard place in the open an hour s rest preparatory to starting upon a new enterprise unlooked-for finale to the autumn campaign in Maryland. VOL. I. CHAPTER VII. DEMONSTRATION INTO MARYLAND OUTPOST-DUTY AND FIGHTS ON THE POTOMAC RENEWED FIGHTING, AND PASSAGE OF THE POTOMAC BY NIGHT CAMP AT MARTINSBURG AND CHARLESTOWN VIRGINIA PARTRIDGES AND A VIRGINIA PLANTATION ESCAPE OF A SPY ADVANCE AND REPULSE OF THE ENEMY VISITS TO NEIGHBOURS. GENERAL STUART had received orders from General Lee to march at once, with two of his brigades (Hampton s and Kobertson s), two regiments of in fantry, and his horse-artillery, to the little town of Williamsport, about fifteen miles higher up the Po tomac, cross again into Maryland, and by a vigorous demonstration induce the enemy to believe that a large portion of our whole army was manoeuvring against them at that point. Accordingly, we had scarcely fallen asleep when the order was given to mount, and we commenced our rapid march through the chill fog of the morning, cold, hungry, and wet to the skin. But a few hours of hard riding, the genial warmth of the sun breaking through the RENEWED DEMONSTRATION INTO MARYLAND. 243 watery sky, and more than all else, a luxurious breakfast, which was quickly prepared for us at a hospitable house on the roadside, the first regular meal that we had enjoyed for many days, revived and refreshed us. About noon we reached the Potomac opposite Williamsport, forded the river, and drove a squadron of Federal cavalry stationed there out of the place towards Hagerstown, a village some six miles distant. A mile beyond Williams- port we halted, throwing out our pickets and videttes. It was not long before the enemy re turned with reinforcements, and a lively skirmish ensued, with even a spirited cannonade ; for we made, of course, as a part of our plan, as great a display of our forces and as much noise as possible. I had here a very striking example of how little effect is often produced by volley - firing. Two companies of one of our infantry regiments which were stationed on the turnpike running to Hagers town, and had hastily thrown up a small intrench- ment across the road, were charged in a very dashing manner by some squadrons of the Federal cavalry. The intrenchment was concealed from view by a slight elevation of ground about forty steps in front of it, so that the Yankees came upon it quite unexpectedly. The infantry officer in com mand had given orders to his men to reserve their 244 SLIGHT RESULTS OF VOLLEY-FIRING. fire till the last moment, and the dense ranks of the horsemen had arrived within close range when suddenly the volley thundered upon them, making them turn and fly precipitately. Having been myself with the infantry, I galloped forward, believ ing that at least half of the assailants had been brought to the ground, but found to my surprise that not a man or a horse had been struck down, the leaden hail having passed far above their heads. On several subsequent occasions I had a similar experience. The haste and uncertainty of volley- firing, even with the improved firearms now in use, made it possible in a few cases for our cavalry successfully to attack and ride down unbroken infantry an attempt which, with accurate dropping fire, I regard as out of the question. During one of the pauses of the fight, when the enemy had retired some distance, General Stuart requested me to reconnoitre their position and further movements. Having done this closely, I sent my report by an orderly I had taken with me, and was riding slowly along the turnpike on my return, when I passed a modest-looking farmhouse, in the garden of which was a trellis of such superb grapes that I could not resist asking of the pro prietor, who stood in his doorway, permission to pluck some of the branches which hung in such NARROW ESCAPE FROM CAPTURE. 245 tempting profusion. The request was not only granted at once, but the hospitable farmer invited me to alight and join him at dinner, which was just about to be served. As everything now seemed perfectly quiet, and the enemy nowhere at hand, I did not think it imprudent to accept his kind offer, otherwise so entirely consistent with my inclination ; so tying my horse to the garden-gate, about twenty steps from the building, I entered the drawing-room, which was already pervaded by the appetising smell of the coming meal. The farmer s wife, seeing some ugly rents in my dilapidated uniform coat, kindly proposed to mend them for me, and, waiving the etiquette of a major remaining in her presence in his shirt-sleeves, had just commenced her task, when I heard the heavy clatter of hoofs on the turnpike, and saw, at the same moment, a whole squadron of Yankees approaching at a full gallop. With one bound I cleared the drawing-room, leaving coat and dinner behind, and ran to my horse, which, parti cipating in his master s alarm, was jumping and plunging so furiously that it was quite an acrobatic t feat to mount him. Meanwhile the hostile dragoons had arrived within twenty steps of me, brandishing their sabres and yelling like demons ; and it seemed likely enough that the grapes which had seduced me with their sweetness would prove sour enough 246 A NEW MAID OF SARAGOSSA. in the sequel. At this critical moment, a couple of shells from two of our guns, which had been put in position on an acclivity commanding the turn pike, a mile off, whizzed close over my head, and with admirable aim exploded in the very midst of the advancing foe, emptying several saddles. At the same instant was heard the war-cry of a squadron of our Virginia horsemen sent by General Stuart to my relief. Their onset and the terrible effect of our artillery made the Yankees wheel and run much faster than they had come ; and thus was saved my life and liberty, coat and dinner. Joining our men in the pursuit, I had the satisfaction of overtaking and capturing several of the recent dis turbers of my peace. Passing the farmhouse on my return, the excellent mistress of the establishment, with a pleasant smile upon her honest face, handed me across the gar den -gate my repaired garment, saying that she had kept my dinner for me. I accepted her attentions with many thanks, but pre ferred at this time to enjoy dinner and grapes on horseback. One of our guns on this occasion had been fired off by a fair young lady of Williamsport, re-enacting the part of the Maid of Saragossa. She had solicited the honour from General Stuart, and the cannon was ever afterwards called by our artillerymen "The REPEATED ENCOUNTERS WITH THE YANKEES. 247 Girl of Williamsport." During the afternoon we drove the enemy back for a considerable distance, and our line of pickets was established about four miles from the Potomac, on the roads leading through Maryland into Pennsylvania. Late in the evening I received orders from General Stuart to make a reconnaissance with two squadrons of the Georgia regiment of Hampton s brigade, along the turnpike leading to Hagerstown, and ran against a strong body of the Federal cavalry, whom we at once attacked and chased into the suburbs of the town. Here large reinforcements received^ us with so galling a fire that we were obliged to give up the pursuit. At night General Stuart was invited with his Staff to a little party in Williamsburg, where we had a capital supper, and where, with music and the dance, in the society of some very charming young ladies, the time went merrily by, till we joined our troops, at a late hour, in their bivouac. 2()th September. Our regiments moved early to the front the following day, as our scouts had re ported the enemy, largely reinforced, to be advancing slowly upon our outposts. At General Stuart s re quest, I accompanied him on one of those little re connoitring expeditions outside our lines, of which he was so fond, and which were always likely to ter minate disastrously, as in this instance was so near 248 A RECONNAISSANCE AND NARROW ESCAPE. being the case. We observed the precaution in the start of keeping as much as possible concealed by the dense undergrowth of the forest, but we had never theless been observed by some of the Yankee pickets, and a body of about twenty-five horsemen had been quietly sent to our rear, cutting us off completely from our command. We were riding along at our ease, when my sharp ear detected the little clinking soundwhich a sabre-scabbard often makes in striking against a tree in a ride through the woods ; and, be lieving that one of our couriers was approaching, I turned leisurely round, and saw the long line of the hostile cavalrymen, each man riding at about twenty steps interval from his neighbour, a short distance behind us. A few quietly uttered words informed General Stuart of the impending danger, when, put ting spurs to our horses, we galloped off, feeling con fident that a hot pursuit would follow, in the confu sion of which we might make good our escape. Ac cordingly, we had a regular fox-chase. The whole body of the Yankees broke forward in a run, calling out to each other, and firing their revolvers in every direction. But we were too well mounted, and too much accustomed to riding through the tangled thickets of the forest, to be overtaken ; so in a short time, when the Federal troopers had been a good deal scattered by their rougli and rapid motion, we DEFENSIVE PREPARATIONS. 249 slipped through them and got over to our lines again before the astonished blue-jackets had recovered from their amazement and chagrin. General Stuart now placed me in command of the left wing of our forces, proceeding himself, with the other members of his Staff, to the extreme right. My principal care was to guard a broad turnpike road leading from Williamsport into the interior of Mary land, along which an advance of a considerable body of the enemy was expected, and where small parties of their cavalry had already appeared. I had two pieces of artillery very favourably posted, and two companies of infantry, which, to prevent a sudden dash of the Yankee horsemen, I employed in making a barricade across the road, flanked by small in- trenchments stretching out about fifty yards on either side. From time to time I had to check the impu dent advance of the Federal cavalry by a shot from my two guns, but altogether there was comparative quiet for several hours. One of the Yankee officers, who, as I was later in formed, was the colonel of the regiment that had effected its escape from Harper s Ferry, had attracted my attention the previous day by his gallantry and the excellent dispositions he made of his troops. Here I saw him again, galloping very near us on a handsome grey horse, quickly discovering our weak 250 A COUKTEOUS OPPONENT. points, and posting and instructing his men accord ingly. After having left him undisturbed for some time, I thought it necessary to put a stop to his pro ceedings, and, selecting a couple of my infantrymen who had been pointed out to me as the best shots, I made across the open space in front of our lines di rectly towards him. Having arrived within reason able distance, I ordered my sharpshooters to fire at the daring colonel, who was moving along at an easy gallop, without paying me the slightest attention. After several bullets had whistled quite close to him, he suddenly halted, and, turning round, advanced a few steps and made me a military salute in the most graceful manner possible. Then calling out to one of his men to hand him a carbine, he raised the weapon, took a deliberate aim at me, and sent his ball so close to my head that I thought it had carried away a lock of my hair. I saluted him now on my part, and, wheeling round quietly, both of us rode back to our respective lines. So are courtesies some times exchanged in the midst of hostile conflict. During the afternoon, Pelham, who for the present had but little occupation with his artillery, and had been reconnoitring the enemy, rode up to me and told me that he had discovered, at five hundred yards distance, an orchard of very fine peaches, a spot which was well worth visiting, because, while enjoying the MOVEMENTS OF THE ENEMY AGAINST US. 251 fruit, we could obtain there a near view of the move ments of the Federal cavalry, which were in consid erable strength hard by, and thus combine the utile with the duke. As all was quiet in my front, I readily consented to accompany him to the orchard upon a reconnaissance which promised to be so fruit ful in its results, and we were soon seated amid the branches of a large peach-tree, eating and looking out to our great satisfaction. The Federal cavalry, only a few hundred yards from us, was already four regi ments strong, and farther off the rising clouds of dust indicated the approach of yet larger columns, so that it was evident our demonstration into Maryland had not failed of its desired effect, and that we occupied the attention of a considerable portion of M Clellan s army. I now returned to my former position, and sent an orderly with my report to General Stuart, from whom I received orders to transfer my present command to Major Pelham, and join him without delay on the right. Here also the enemy s forces were heavily massed in front of us, and our scouts reported large columns of infantry, with cavalry and artillery, ad vancing upon all the roads leading towards Williams- port. In my opinion the time for our retreat had now arrived, but Stuart believed he could still hold his ground, and seemed determined not to give up until 252 , OBSTINACY OF STUART. he had shown fight. As usual, he was exceedingly desirous of closely observing the enemy s movements himself, and forming his own judgment concerning them ; and as he and I were riding very close upon their lines, we were several times chased by small bodies of Yankee horse, whom we only escaped by jumping the fences, which crossed the country on every hand, and which were rather too high for North ern horsemanship. In front of our centre, occupied by Hampton s brigade, no signs of the Yankees were to be observed, which led Stuart to the opinion that it would be practicable for his command to move forward under cover of the darkness of the night, make a circuit round Hagerstown, operate in the enemy s rear, and recross some ten miles higher up the Potomac. Gen eral Hampton, whose patrols had made prisoners of men belonging to several different divisions of the Federal army, believing that a very large portion, if not the whole, of M Clellan s force was stretched out in a semicircle before him, regarded this operation as impossible, and remonstrated against it. But Stuart resolutely insisted on the execution of his daring design, and sent me back to Hampton with peremp tory orders to march at once. This intrepid General instantly gave the command to move forward to what he so justly considered certain destruction, saying to A NIGHT CANNONADE. 253 me, "Good-bye, my dear friend; I don t think you will ever see me or a man of my brave brigade again." Agreeing with him perfectly as to the impossibility of the undertaking, I felt sad and oppressed as, galloping back, I saw the last of the gallant horsemen disappearing in the darkness be hind the hills. General Stuart had sent one of his batteries across the river, which, occupying the high banks opposite Williamsport, was, in case of necessity, to cover our retreat ; the rest of the guns he posted on an emi nence a mile from the town, around which the re maining part of our command had been concentrated. Night had set in fairly when I returned to him, and the enemy commencing to press upon us with cavalry, infantry, and artillery, a deafening cannonade ensued, filling the air with solid shot and shell, one of which latter missiles burst so near my head that for several minutes I was completely stunned. Stuart soon discovered the mistake he had com mitted with regard to Hampton s brigade ; and hop ing it might not yet be too late to save them, he said to me, " Major, you are the only man who will perhaps be able to find Hampton and reach him in time ; ride to him as quickly as your horse can carry you, and order him to return at once and recross the Potomac." I was very well aware of the danger of this commis- 254 KECALL AND RETREAT OF HAMPTON. sion. The night was pitch dark, the enemy s troops were spread out over the whole country, the ground was broken and difficult, and but partially knownto me ; but, more discouraging than all, my horse had been so worn down by the continued fatigues of the last few days, that I could scarcely spur him into a gallop. So long as the true cavalier has a good fresh horse under him, he recks little of danger, and con fronts it gaily ; but with the giving in of his charger s strength the elan disappears, and the sense of honour and duty alone urges him forward. Silently I pressed the hand of my chief as a last farewell, then, driving the spurs into the flanks of my exhausted steed, I rode off into the night. After half an hour I heard the sound of hoofs in front of me, and had just put myself in readiness for the probable rencontre, when, to my surprise and delight, my challenge of " Halt ! who are you?" was answered, " It is I, Major Cap tain Hamilton, of Hampton s Staff. Where can I find General Stuart ? " He then informed me that Hamp ton had tried at several points to break through the enemy s lines, but had been met everywhere by over whelming numbers, and being well convinced of the utter hopelessness of doing so, had on his own re sponsibility ordered a retreat. I despatched Captain Hamilton at once to General Stuart, to make report to him, and proceeded myself to join Hampton, whose NIGHT PASSAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 255 column I could hear close at hand, trotting along the turnpike. Whoever has been himself in so perilous a situation, and has unexpectedly found hope and relief again, can understand the joyous emotion with which I greeted my chivalrous friend, who was as much pleased to receive as I was to deliver General Stuart s orders. Without further accident we reached the banks of the Potomac, and as I was well acquainted with the somewhat difficult ford, I piloted the brigade across the broad stream, and having satisfactorily accomplished this, returned to General Stuart, who had in the mean time been pressed hard by the enemy, and was just directing his troops towards the river. Our battery on the Virginia side, joined by the other pieces as they were successively brought over, now opened a spirited fire in the direction where the enemy was supposed to be advancing, which was answered vigorously by the Federal artillery. This passage of the Potomac by night was one of those magnificent spectacles which are seen only in war. The whole landscape was lighted up with a lurid glare from the burning houses of Williamsport, which had been ignited by the enemy s shells. High over the heads of the crossing column and the dark waters of the river, the blazing bombs passed each other in parabolas of flame through 256 OUR SUCCESSFUL RETREAT. the air, and the spectral trees showed their every limb and leaf against the red sky. About 11 P.M. the crossing had been safely effected, and we all felt thankful to regain the soil of Virginia, after a loss in killed and wounded com paratively trifling when considered with the dangers to which we had been exposed. The pursuit was not continued by the enemy across the river, and we marched quietly about six miles further in the direction of Martinsburg, and bivouacked for the remainder of the night near the large plantation of Mr C., whose abundant supplies of corn and hay gave sufficient food for the fatigued and hungry horses of our whole command. On the beautiful clear morning of Sunday, the 21st of September, we continued our march to Martins- burg, a small town on the Baltimore and Ohio Bail- way and the Winchester turnpike, which we reached about noon, and around which our troops bivouacked. Here we received the earliest intelligence of a de cided victory, won by Jackson s corps the previous day, over a portion of the enemy s forces. General M Clellan, finding the fords of the Potomac but slightly guarded, determined upon a forward move ment into Virginia, and had already crossed the river with a considerable body of his troops at Boteler s Mill. General Lee, foreseeing this, had JACKSON S FINISHING STROKE. 257 put Jackson in charge of his rear, and old Stone wall, having allowed as many Yankees to come over as he thought convenient, suddenly broke upon them, in his rapid and vigorous way, routing them entirely, killing and wounding large numbers, and taking 2000 prisoners. Such as were not placed hors de combat by his impetuous charge, he drove into the waters of the Potomac, which for hours floated down the corpses of men killed in the middle of the stream by bullet or shell, or whelmed beneath the waves in attempting to escape. Thus the retir ing lion had taught a severe lesson to his pursuer, and attempts to follow our army into Virginia were for some time abandoned. An old friend and comrade of Pelham s, Captain A., living in Martinsburg, invited the Major and myself to dine, and we spent a delightful evening with him and his amiable family, it being a late hour of the night when we joined the rest of our headquarters party in bivouac about a mile from town. During the forenoon of the following day, we received information that our waggons had halted five miles from us in the direction of Williamsport, at the small village of Hainesville, where General Stuart subsequently decided to establish his head quarters. The main body of our army had gone in the mean time in the direction of Winchester, the VOL. i. R 258 AGAIN IN COMFORT. right wing, under Longstreet, encamping near that town; the left, under Jackson, remaining half-way between Martinsburg and Winchester, near the ham let called Bunker Hill. The cavalry had to cover the line along the Potomac from Williarnsport to Harper s Ferry, Hampton s brigade being stationed near Hainesville, Fitz Lee s near Shepherdstown, and Eobertson s under Colonel Munford, near Charles- town, opposite Harper s Ferry ; which latter strong hold, after everything valuable had been removed from it, had been given up to the enemy. We rejoiced greatly at coming up with our waggons again after so long a separation from them, and at having our negro servants to wait on us and fresh horses for use. Our tents were soon pitched in the garden of a little tavern ; and having performed our ablutions, and indulged in a change of linen, we felt once more clean, comfortable, and happy. In the evening, Pelham and I, mounting our mules, rode very proudly over to the camp of the 1st North Carolina regiment, where we had been invited by its officers, Colonel Baker and Major Gordon, to join them rare luxury indeed in a bowl of punch, and where we had a very pleasant symposium, laughing and talking over the adventures of our recent cam paign. The next day passed as quietly as if there had been no enemy within a hundred miles of us, THE AMERICAN PARTRIDGE. 259 and we became assiduously lazy, lying about on the soft grass, smoking the pipe of placid contentment, if not the calumet of peace. After an early dinner, I determined to make myself useful in providing for the next morning s breakfast-table of our mess ; and, with my trusty double-barrel gun, which, with the necessary ammunition, I always carried along in the waggons, I sought the partridges which were said to abound in the large fields around the village. The American partridge in its habits closely re sembles the partridge of Europe, but is much smaller in size, and different in plumage, reminding one more of the European quail. It consorts in large coveys, which, after having been dispersed, collect together again by a musical whistle, piped in a high key. Frequently, during the winter months, when the ground is covered with snow, and sometimes even in summer, they take to the trees ; and more than once I have seen whole coveys of them fly out of the tufted top of a pine. The meat is white and has not much of a game flavour, but that of the young birds is very tender and delicious. I found a great many in the high grass, but having no dogs with me, I lost several that I had shot, and brought but four home with me in my bag. In the evening I galloped over to Martinsburg, and paid a second visit to Captain A. and the agreeable ladies of his 260 ORDERED TO CHARLESTOWN. household, returning after midnight to my soft bed in the tent. Quite unexpectedly I received orders next morning from General Stuart to proceed with half of the Staff and couriers to Charlestown, nearly twenty miles off, and to establish near there, until further instructions, a second headquarters, to which reports from Robert son s brigade, forming the right wing of our line, should be sent, and from which, in case of urgency, they should be transmitted by me to General Jackson, at Bunker Hill. Our route lay through Martinsburg, where a well-dressed man, mounted on a good-looking horse, was turned over to me by the town authorities as a spy. He had been arrested there, and it was said the evidence was pretty clear that he had been engaged in this disgraceful business for a long time. I placed him between two of my couriers, giving them orders to shoot him down should he make any effort to escape. In due time we reached Charlestown, a charming village, the county seat of one of the richest and most fertile counties of Virginia Jefferson and fixed our headquarters upon the farm of Colonel D., about half a mile from the town, immediately informing the commanding officer of Eobertson s brigade, Colonel Munford, of my presence. Colonel D. s plantation was one of the most extensive and beautiful I had A VIRGINIAN PLANTER AND HIS FAMILY. 261 seen in America. The stately mansion-house stood in the midst of fair lawns, and orchards prodigal of the peach and the apple ; a little removed from which were large stables and granaries, and all around an amplitude of rich, cultivated fields, with a background in the distant landscape of dense forests of oak and hickory. The family consisted of the proprietor whose military title of Colonel had been derived from the militia his wife, daughter, and son- in-law, all of whom received me with the greatest courtesy and hospitality. The Colonel was good enough to conduct me all over the estate, where many things interested me ; among others the large cider-press, then in full operation, pouring out the sweet juice of the apple, of which everybody, white and black, was permitted to drink as much as he pleased. Colonel D. took much pride in showing me his stock of Cashmere goats, the first pair of which he had himself imported many years before, at a cost of several thousand dollars. It is sad to know that all these valuable animals, at a later period of the war, were killed and devoured by the ruthless Yankees. I was not a little embarrassed at headquarters by my prisoner, and was compelled to ask Colonel D. s permission to use one of the rooms of a house in his garden as a jail for the night, to which I had the spy transferred, with orders that he should be bound 262 ESCAPE OF A SPY. hand and foot. It was very soon reported to me, however, that he made a very obstinate resistance to this treatment, and it became necessary for me to proceed in person to the lodge to have my orders carried out. While the work of securing him was going on, the spy broke out in a most excited manner against me, saying that he was a gentleman, and that he should not fail hereafter in making me personally responsible, and punishing me for my conduct. I begged him, very politely, to be quiet, assuring him that if I could but follow my own convictions of propriety, I should save him from the inconvenience and discomfort of his bonds by hanging him before the next morning. I regretted afterwards that I had not done so. Colonel D. being obliged to make use of the tem porary prison the following morning, I had the delin quent released from his manacles, and placed him in charge of a trusty young courier, named Chancellor, in whom I had the fullest confidence, and who had always accompanied me on expeditions of peculiar peril. About half an hour later, as I was just making the latest entry in my journal, Chancellor rushed into the room in the wildest excitement of rage and mor tification, and informed me, with the tears actually streaming from his eyes, that the spy had escaped. Having imprudently permitted him to walk out near ATTACK BY THE ENEMY. 263 a large field of Indian corn, then fully in tassle, he had profited by a momentary inattention on the part of his keeper to jump into the thicket of green stalks, and vanished behind their luxuriant blades before poor Chancellor was able to fire a shot at him. In a few minutes, I myself and most of my men were in the saddle, searching the fields narrowly, but without success ; and I was obliged to relinquish the game, and return to headquarters, as the boom of artillery, sounding over from beyond Charlestown, announced that there was other work to be done. On my way to the scene of action, I met a courier from Colonel Munford, who reported that the enemy had driven back our pickets opposite Harper s Ferry, and was advancing towards Charlestown in consider able strength. I found the brigades drawn up across the broad turnpike leading to the river, on a slight range of hills beyond Charlestown, and our artillery well posted and already hotly engaged with two Federal batteries. A large number of our men were dismounted as sharpshooters, and the firing ran briskly along our whole line. The combat grew for a time fiercer and fiercer, and the Yankees seemed deter mined upon driving us off ; but during the afternoon we assumed the offensive and repulsed them heavily, chasing their flying columns into the protecting fortifications of Harper s Ferry. Our loss in killed 264 VISITS AND HOSPITALITIES. and wounded was small; that of the Federals must have been large, for, besides those left upon the field, many of their wounded were carried off in their am bulances, which I had seen moving to and fro all the morning. We took twenty-five prisoners. Late in the evening I returned to the hospitable mansion of Colonel D., where the whole family awaited in great anxiety the result of the conflict, and heartily con gratulated me on our success. The spy s horse, a fine mare five years old, which he left behind him, I took in charge, and it was afterwards formally turned over to me by General Stuart. The next two days, 26th and 27th September, passed in perfect quietude, and I greatly enjoyed the glorious autumn weather, riding all over the country with Colonel D. s son-in-law, and visiting the neighbouring plantations, which, almost without exception, were large, fertile, and beautiful. Among others, I visited the mansion of Colonel Lewis Washington, a descen dant of George Washington, who had in his possession the sword which Frederick the Great of Prussia had given to his ancestor, with the inscription, " From the oldest living general to the greatest." We also visited the noble estate of Mr T., who had travelled much in Europe, and who gave us an excellent dinner, where we passed some pleasant hours over the walnuts and the wine. All around the dwelling were magnificent AMERICAN ANTIQUITY. 265 hickory-trees, which were inhabited by innumerable tame grey squirrels that were great pets of Mr T., and amused me exceedingly with their nimble and graceful antics. On the way home we passed a large plantation which, I was told, belonged to a free negro, one of the richest men of the county, who was himself the owner of numerous slaves. My pleasant com panion took care also to show me, with a certain pride, what he called an old ruin a dismantled church, a short distance from Charlestown, which had seventy or eighty years ago been burned down, and which looked quite picturesque, with ivy trailing from its shattered walls and Gothic windows. Upon me, long accustomed to the century-stained ruins of Europe, the " old " church of Jefferson did not make the desired impression. CHAPTER VIII. CHANGE OF HEADQUARTERS FIGHTING RESUMED CAMP LIFE AT " THE BOWER " PLEASANTRIES WITH PLEASANTON WE LOSE AND RECAPTURE MARTINSBURG OSCULATORY OVATION AT SHEPHERDSTOWN WITH A FLAG OF TRUCE INTO THE ENEMY S LINES FIELD-SPORTS AND DRAMATIC ENTERTAINMENTS NEW UNIFORM COAT FOR GENERAL JACKSON. GENERAL STUART had meanwhile shifted his head quarters to a point exactly in rear of the centre of our outpost lines, and much nearer to Jackson than my own position at Charlestown, thus rendering my further detached duty unnecessary. Accordingly, on the morning of the 28th, orders reached me to join him at " The Bower," a plantation eight miles from Martinsburg, and about ten from Charlestown. Two- thirds of our march thither had been already accom plished, and we were just entering the little village of Leetown, when a heavy cannonade was heard from the neighbourhood we had left, and Stuart soon came galloping towards us. His orders now were that I MORE FIGHTING. 267 should return with him at once to the scene of the conflict. Biding at full speed, in an hour s time we reached the spot, where our troops were hard pressed by the far superior numbers of the foe. General Stuart im mediately sent instructions to Fitz Lee to come with all haste to his support, and determined upon trying to maintain his position until his reinforcements should arrive. Munford and his men had been fight ing with their accustomed gallantry ; but the Yankees receiving again and again fresh troops from Harper s Ferry, and their numerous batteries pouring upon us a most destructive fire, we were compelled to retreat and abandon Charlestown, which was instantly occu pied by the enemy, who halted there, and did not seek to push their success farther. Their possession of the town, however, was of very short duration ; for Fitz Lee suddenly appearing on their right flank at the same moment that we attacked them vigorously in front, they were now driven in turn to their strong hold, of Harper s Ferry; and before nightfall we had regained our old lines and re-established our pickets. As a renewed attack on the morrow was not to be expected, General Stuart with his Staff and escort started at dusk for our new headquarters in the elysiaii fields of " The Bower," of the beauty of which spot my comrades had given me such glowing accounts, 268 BEAUTY OF "THE BOWER. that I waited with great impatience and curiosity the light of the morning, arriving there, as we did, after midnight in utter darkness. When I arose from my grassy couch at sunrise on the 29th, I found, indeed, that the half had not been told me of " The Bower." Our headquarters were situated on a hill beneath a grove of lofty umbrage ous oaks of primitive growth, which extended, on the right, towards the large mansion-house, the thick brick walls of which, in the blush of the early sun light, were just visible in little patches of red through the rich verdure of the embosoming garden. At the foot of this hill, skirting a main road to which the slope was smooth and gradual, ran the bright little river Opequan, its limpid waters breaking through and tumbling over cliffs and rocks, thus forming a cascade of considerable height, with rainbows in its spray as the sun changed every falling drop into a ruby or a diamond. This lovely entourage was now enlivened and diversified by the white tents of our encampment, the General s, with its fluttering battle- flag, in the centre, by the smoke of the camp-fires where the negroes were busily engaged in cooking breakfasts, by the picturesque groups of officers and men who were strolling about or cleaning their arms, and by the untethered horses and mules which were quietly grazing all over the ground. One may be OUK LIFE THERE. 269 pardoned some extravagance of language in attempt ing to describe a scene which brought a feeling of thankful happiness to the soldier, weary of the ex citement, the toil, the hardships, and the anguish of war. We had now plenty of food for our exhausted animals, which had undergone so much fatigue and privation, and our own commissariat was far more abundant than it had been for many weeks. The long mess-table, at which we dined together in the open air, was loaded with substantial that seemed dainties and luxuries to us, who often for days to gether had gone without food, and at best could secure only a meagre repast. The plantation of " The Bower " had been long in the possession of the family of Dandridge, one mem ber of which, more than a century ago, was the pretty widow Martha Custis, nee Dandridge, afterwards the wife of George Washington, whose beauty and amia bility have been preserved in history and fiction, who was delineated by the pencil of Stuart in one genera tion, and the pen of Thackeray in another. Nowhere, perhaps, in the wide limits of the State, could one have formed a better idea of the refined manners and profuse hospitable life of dear old Virginia, and before the breaking -out of the war "The Bower" had rarely been without its guests. The proprietor at the time I knew the place was a kind-hearted 270 BOB SWEENEY AND HIS BANJO. intelligent gentleman of fifty or thereabouts, whose charming wife retained, in a remarkable degree for America, the personal attractiveness of her youthful bloom. The rest of the numerous family consisted of grown and growing sons and daughters and nieces. Of the boys, three were in the army fighting bravely for cause and country. The girls, some of whom were exceedingly handsome, and all of whom were pleasing and accomplished, remained beneath the rooftree of the old homestead. With these amiable people I soon contracted a very intimate friendship, which time nor distance can ever weaken. Frequently, when the mocha, of which we had captured a large supply from the enemy, was smok ing invitingly on our breakfast-table, we had the pleasure of greeting the proprietor as a welcome guest at our morning meal at headquarters ; later in the day a lady s skirt might even be seen in the streets of our encampment ; but regularly every night we proceeded with our band to the house, where dancing was kept up till a late hour. The musical director of our band was a private of one of our regiments, whom Stuart had detached to his military family for his musical talent alone, Bob Sweeney, a brother of the celebrated banjo-player, Joe Sweeney, forerunner of all the Christy s; Bob Sweeney, who also played this favourite instrument AN ENTHUSIASTIC "BONES." 271 of the family with amazing cleverness ; who knew sentimental, bibulous, martial, nautical, comic songs out of number ; who was carried about with him by the General everywhere ; who will have a conspicu ous place in some of our later adventures ; and who, after having safely passed through many accidents of war, died at last of small-pox, regretted by every body, but most of all by " Jeb. Stuart." Bob was assisted by two of our couriers who played the vio lin, musicians of inferior merit ; but his chief reliance was in Mulatto Bob, Stuart s servant, who worked the bones with the most surprising and extraordinary agility, and became so excited that both head and feet were in constant employment, and his body twisted about so rapidly and curiously that one could not help fearing that he would dislocate his limbs and fly to pieces in the midst of the break down. General Stuart was himself always the gayest and noisiest of the party, starting usually at the close of the festivity the famous song " If you want to have a good time, Join in the cavalry, Join in the cavalry," &c. the whole of the excited company, young and old, uniting in the chorus, the last notes of which sounded far through the still air of the night as we walked back to our tents. General Stuart did not like it at 272 A FEDERAL DESERTER. all if any one of his Staff officers withdrew himself from these innocent merry-makings, after the fatigues of the day, to seek an early rest, and would always rouse him from his slumbers to take part in the revelry. On the 29th Stuart turned over to my care and attention a Federal deserter, who pretended to have been an officer of Engineers in the Prussian army, and professed a competent knowledge of topography, but who turned out to be a great humbug, of whom I got rid as soon as possible. I have recently seen in the Northern newspapers that this fellow was used as a witness for the Federal Government in the great conspiracy trial at Washington. I had now taken up my quarters in the same tent with my comrade, Captain Blackford, who had a wonderful talent for making himself comfortable ; and in a short time we had so improved our habitat that it was quite a model establishment. My former tent (one of the so-called dog-tents), which was very narrow and contracted, insomuch that when I lay in it at full length either my head or my feet must be exposed to the night air and the dews, I turned over to our two negroes William and Gilbert, who en larged it greatly, and it now stood immediately in the rear of our own. The first day of October brought a sudden change in our life of happy quietude and social enjoyment. THE ENEMY AGAIN IN MOTION. 273 At an early hour we received a report from our pick ets near Shepherdstown that the enemy were showing themselves in large numbers on the opposite bank of the Potomac, to which about noon succeeded the intelligence that several brigades of Federal cavalry under General Pleasanton had crossed the river, driven in our pickets, and were rapidly advancing upon Martinsburg. This put us at once in the saddle, and we proceeded at full gallop to the headquarters of Colonel William H. F. Lee (son of General Eobert E. Lee), who was temporarily in command of the brigade of his cousin Fitz Lee, this officer having a few days before received a kick 011 the leg from a malicious mule, which disabled him for a consider able time. Colonel Lee had already hastened to wards Martinsburg, whither we followed him, and where General Stuart found, to his intense disgust, that the place had been abandoned, a fact first made apparent by the whizzing bullets of the Yankee sharpshooters on approaching the outskirts of the town. Colonel Lee had retired a short distance upon the turnpike leading to Winchester ; General Hamp ton with his brigade rested on the road leading to Hainesville, both commands still keeping up a con nection with each other. General Stuart sent at once for the brigade commanders, and, expressing his great dissatisfaction, said, " Gentlemen, this thing VOL. I. S 274 EECAPTUKE OF MARTINSBURG. will not do ; I will give you twenty minutes, within which time the town must be again in our posses sion." Lee s brigade was ordered to open the attack in front, supported by a corresponding movement of Hampton s command on the enemy s right flank. Our brave horsemen, who were happy to have their bold commander with them again, received us as we galloped up to their lines with tremendous cheers, which struck terror into the hearts of the Federals. Our column of attack (column of platoons, as the road leading into Martinsburg, being lined on either side by stone walls, rendered the formation in line impossible) was soon formed, the sabres leapt rat tling from their scabbards, and with a loud yell the mighty body of many hundred horsemen dashed forward at a full gallop down the turnpike. Hamp ton starting simultaneously on the Hainesville road, and our horse-artillery opening a spirited fire over our heads, the effect was too much for the Yankees, who turned in rapid flight in the direction of Shep- herdstown. I was the first of our command to enter Martins- burg, but determinedly as I spurred my horse, I arrived there only in time to see the last of the blue-jackets disappearing on the opposite side of the village. Hampton now received orders to occupy Martins- burg and gradually re-establish his pickets, Lee s PURSUIT OF THE ENEMY. 275 brigade continuing the pursuit, followed by Pelham with four of his guns, which he posted on a hill a mile beyond the town, and opened with them a rapid and very effective fire upon the dense columns of the enemy. Stuart would have given a great deal to capture the commander of the Federal horse and annihilate his command. He had been with General Pleasan- ton at West Point, and they had there been bitter enemies. Pleasanton had annoyed Stuart greatly in the olden days by his foppish vanity, and in the latter days by his dash and enterprise. But this was not to be. The Yankees in their flight, recovering from their panic, often turned round and showed determined fight ; and their numerous horse- artillery, which was admirably served, by its de structive fire covered excellently well their retreat. The increasing darkness also interfered much with the celerity of our movements ; but the indefatigable Stuart, leading everywhere in person, carried his men forward again and again, driving the enemy through Shepherdstown into the waves of the Potomac. The rear-guard of the Federals was, by a determined attack at the last moment, completely dispersed ; but, protected by the intense darkness of the night, most of the men made their escape, and only thirty prisoners fell into our hands. But the 276 POPULARITY OF STUART. killed and wounded of the Federals must have reached a large figure. On our return through Shepherdstown, we stopped for an hour at the house of a lady, a friend of General Stuart, Mrs L., who had lost her husband, one of his former classmates, at the first battle of Manassas. To her and her sisters I was presented ; at a later period I became well acquainted with them. The General s presence was no sooner known in the village than a mob of young and pretty girls collected at Mrs L. s house, all very much excited to such an extent, indeed, that the General s uniform was in a few minutes entirely shorn of its buttons, taken as souvenirs ; and if he had given as many locks of his hair as were asked for, our commander would soon have been totally bald. Stuart suffered all this very gracefully, with the greater resignation as every one of these patriotic young ladies gave him a kiss as tribute and reward. This latter favour was unhappily not extended to the Staff-officers, and it may be readily imagined that it was tantalising for us to look on and not take part in the pleasant ceremony. We arived at " The Bower " at a late hour of the night, but found our kind host yet awake, the excitement and anxiety of the day hav ing prevented him from retiring. Here we obtained compensation for the loss of our dinner in an abun- PREPARE FOR A VISIT TO THE ENEMY. 277 dant supply of cold meat, and cut into a capital Virginia ham with a greater amount of destruction than we had done during the day into the ranks of the enemy. The following day there came some important documents and letters from General E. E. Lee to be transmitted to General M Clellan, and I had the honour to be selected by our command er-in-chief as the bearer of them into the Federal lines. To make a favourable impression upon " our friends the enemy," I fitted myself out as handsomely as the very seedy condition of my wardrobe would allow ; and as all my own horses were, more or less, broken- down, I borrowed a high-stepping, fine-limbed chest nut from one of my comrades of the Staff for the occasion. General Stuart took advantage of the opportunity to send under my charge a batch of prisoners for exchange, and, intrusting me with some private messages to M Clellan, bade me proceed as far as possible into the enemy s lines, and employ all my diplomacy to obtain a large insight into his positions to as great an extent, at least, as was con sistent with the proprieties of my mission. About ten o clock in the morning, my fifty or sixty Yankee prisoners were turned over to me by Colonel W. H. F. Lee at his camp, and at noon I reached the Potomac near Shepherdstown, escorted by a caval- 278 MY FLAG OF TRUCE. cade of our officers, who were interested in accom panying me as far as the river with my flag of truce. This imposing ensign consisted of a white pocket- handkerchief on a long pole, and was borne most loftily by one of our couriers, a handsome martial- looking fellow, who crossed the river with it, and soon brought me the permission to come to the opposite shore. I was greatly amused, during our passage of the ford, by the bitter complaints of the Yankee prisoners, that they were forced to wade through the cold waters of the Potomac, which wet them from head to foot. I answered them, that I was not myself unmoved by the cruel compulsion, and that I should be yet more deeply affected by it, had not all the boats along the river been seized and burned by their army. On the Maryland shore I was received by a major, who was in command of the outposts at this part of the Federal lines, who handed me his proper written acknowledgment for the prisoners, and said, that as for the papers and documents I might deliver them to him, and he would forward them at once. This, of course, I politely declined, giving him to understand that despatches of such importance I could only deliver to General M Clellan, or, should this be impossible, to some other general of his army ; and adding, that as I supposed General Pleasanton to be supreme in CONVERSATION WITH FEDERAL OFFICERS. 279 command of this portion of the lines, I should be glad to be conducted to him. The Major here be trayed some embarrassment, and spoke of impos sibilities, &c., but at last concluded to send off a mounted officer for further instructions. Meanwhile all the Yankee soldiers who were not on duty came running towards me, impelled by curiosity to see the " great big rebel officer," in such numbers that the Major was compelled to establish a cordon of sentries around me to keep them at a respectful distance. The only camp-stool that could be produced having been politely offered me for a seat, I soon found myself engaged in a lively and pleasant conversation with a group of Federal officers. Upon one matter only that was brought into the discourse we were unable to agree. They claimed the battle of Sharpsburg as a brilliant victory for their arms. I could not see it in that light. At length, after a weary time of waiting, came the answer to the Major s message that I might proceed ; and a good-looking young cavalry officer was reported to me as guide and protector. Eager to anticipate a disagreeable and awkward formality, I now asked to be blindfolded, but this was politely waived. Starting from the ford, I took a tall and singularly shaped pine-tree, which reared itself far above the 280 THE FEDERAL CAMP AND SOLDIERS. tops of its neighbours, as a landmark, and with this constantly in sight, it was not difficult for me to dis cover that I was purposely carried about in a circle, up hill and down dale, through dense woods and vast encampments of troops. The Federal army at this time certainly appeared to the greatest advantage in its camps. Everywhere was observable the most beautiful order. The soldiers were well dressed, and had the look of being well fed ; their arms were in excellent condition ; and the whole of their canton ments spoke of a high degree of military discipline, the absence of which I had so often regretted in our own bivouacs. My companion proved to be a very pleasant young gentleman but inexperienced officer, who, during a ride of eight miles, which brought us to somebody s headquarters, voluntarily gave me much information that he should have kept to himself. Here I saw at a glance a considerable display of the pomp and cir cumstance of war. What a contrast it presented to the headquarters of our general officers, especially to the simple encampment of our great commander-in- chief, who, with his Staff and escort, occupied only a few small tents, scarcely to be distinguished from the tent of a lieutenant ! Here a little town of canvass surrounded the magnificent marquee of the General, from which floated the stars and stripes in a reckless EXPECTED ARRIVAL OF LINCOLN. 281 extravagance of bunting ; numerous sentries were pacing their beats ; mounted officers, resplendent with bullion, galloped to and fro ; and two regiments of Zouaves in their gaudy uniforms were drawn up for parade. I had already found out that this was General Fitzjohn Porter s headquarters, and it was evident enough that some very great personage was expected there. Adjoining the General s marquee there had been erected a beautiful pavilion, under which was stretched out a long table laden with luxuries of every description, bottles of champagne in silver ice- coolers, a profusion of delicious fruit, and immense bouquets of flowers. A balloon (I have mentioned before that this means of observation was much in use with the Federal army) was rising every few minutes to the height of several hundred feet, the car, secured by ropes, filled with officers, who, with all kinds of glasses, were looking out narrowly in the direction of Harper s Ferry. I was not mistaken in my conjectures. As I afterwards learned, no less a dignitary than President Lincoln was momentarily looked for. Escorted by General M Clellan, the Pre sident had already inspected a great portion of the Federal army of the Potomac ; and as this was to be kept a secret, my visit was necessarily to be a short one. 282 INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL PORTER. During the time my young companion was an nouncing my presence to General Porter, I directed my eye towards the river, and there stood my pine- tree, not more than three miles distant in a straight line, plainly in view. From General Porter s tent I could now hear the sound of voices in excited conversation ; indeed, I caught several very angry expressions before my guide returned with a flushed face, in which one could read plainly the reprimand that had been given him, and desired me to enter. General Porter, as he rose to receive me, I found to be a man of rather above the middle height, with a frank and agreeable face, the lower part of which was covered with a luxuriant black beard, and in his whole bearing and appearance the soldier. The floor of his ample tent was carpeted, easy-chairs and a couch offered their accommodations, and his headquarters had all the comfort of a well-furnished drawing-room. After a brief interchange of salutations, ensued the following colloquy : Federal General. " You will allow me to express my regret that you have been brought here, and to say that a grave fault has been committed, in your coming." Confederate Major. " General, I have been long enough a soldier to know that a grave mistake lias INTEEVIEW WITH GENERAL PORTER. 283 been committed, but I also know that the fault is not on my side." Fed. Gen. " You are right I ask your pardon. But why did you inquire for General Pleasanton, and what in the world induced you to suppose that he was in command here ? I do not myself know where General Pleasanton is at this moment he may be on your side of the Potomac." Confed. Major. " Where General Pleasanton is to-day I am certainly not able to tell ; but as I had the pleasure of seeing him with my own eyes last night returning with considerable haste to this side of the river, I had the right to suppose that he was here." Fed. Gen. (laughing). " I can have no objection to your conjecture. When do you think to join General Stuart again ? " Confed. Major. " Should I ride all night, I may hope to reach him some time to-morrow morning." (I was dancing at half-past ten o clock that same night at " The Bower/ ) Fed. Gen. (again laughing). " You seem to enjoy riding at night." Confed. Major. "Very much, at this delightful season of the year/ The General now very courteously offered me some refreshments, which I declined, saving and excepting 284 CHARACTER OF GENERAL PORTER, a single glass of brandy-and- water. I then delivered my despatches, pocketed my receipt for them, and took leave of a man whom I could not help admiring for his amenity of manners and high soldierly bear ing. General Fitzjohn Porter proved to be too much of the gentleman for the Northern Government. He was very soon afterwards dismissed from the service for faults alleged to have been committed during Pope s campaigns, but I have pleasure in bearing my testimony (that of an enemy) to his qualities as a gallant soldier and an excellent fighter. I availed myself of this opportunity of writing from the tent of the Adjutant-General a private note to Major Von E., a former brother officer of mine in the Prussian army, who was serving on M Clellan s Staff, looking to an interview, possibly under similar circumstances as had now brought me into the Federal lines, which interview, however, never took place. Starting now upon my return, I could not help expressing to my escort how very much I re gretted he should have incurred the displeasure of his general by conducting me to him. He had the amazing effrontery to deny that this was the case ; but I knew better. Soon afterwards he offered me a cigar, which I thankfully accepted, and, finding it excellent, praised very highly ; whereupon he said, that having a large supply of them, he should be A PARTING PIECE OF ADVICE. 285 only too happy if I would consent to take a few- boxes as a present, adding that he believed we were entirely cut off from luxuries of this kind. I thanked him cordially, but declined his friendly proposal, as suring him that he was altogether mistaken as to this matter, inasmuch as the steamers that were constantly running the blockade kept us abundantly provided with havannas. This was not strictly true, and I made the little sacrifice to pride with an almost broken heart. We had the same long roundabout ride on our return, and it was late in the evening when we arrived on the bank of the Potomac, through whose waters I was conducted half-way by my friendly foe, who, as we shook hands at parting, regretted that we were enemies to each other, and said that he hoped we should meet again, "when this cruel war was over," under happier circumstances. I thanked him for his kindly feeling, and begged him to take a lesson from me as a farewell offering. Showing him my pine-tree on the Maryland shore which had served me as landmark, I said to him " My young friend, General Fitzjohn Porter s headquarters in a straight line are not three miles from that tree he is in command of your right wing : to deceive me, you have conducted me all around the country, but I have always known where I was, and I have passed three divisions of your army ; moreover, an important 286 RETURN TO " THE BOWER. personage is every moment expected at General Por ter s tent, and this personage is no other than Pre sident Lincoln." My courteous adversary laughed heartily at this, and said, " Well, I did not believe that in any other nation of the world there was a man who could fool a Yankee; you have shown me the contrary, and I accept the lesson." We then shook hands for the last time, and returned to our respective lines. Darkness had already set in as I reached Shep- herdstown ; nevertheless I stopped for a short time at the house of Mrs L., where the recital of my ad ventures greatly interested a crowd of young ladies. It was half-past ten o clock when I arrived again at " The Bower/ from the brightly illuminated windows of which there came the merry sound of music and the dance. General Stuart listened with great amuse ment and satisfaction to my report and the particulars of my interview with General Porter ; and upon my concluding, said, " My dear Von" (one of his many forms of salutation to me), "you shall have thirty minutes dancing, and then a fresh horse shall be saddled for you, and you must be off at once to make your reports to Generals Jackson and Lee/ I used my thirty minutes well, and had just taken my place opposite a very pretty girl in a Virginia reel, when J. E. B. suddenly usurped it, saying, " Be off, my MY REPORT TO JACKSON. 287 dear fellow ; I will do your duty here." And he did, what time I was galloping through the woods in the darkness of the night. One o clock had passed when, after a ride of four teen miles, I reached Jackson s headquarters, where everybody was fast asleep. The lightest touch of my hand awoke old Stonewall, and, recognising my voice, he cried out, " Ah ! there you are, my dear Major ; you must bring us important news from the Yankees." I replied that I did, but that fortunately I had nothing alarming to report. Then, availing myself of the General s kind invitation, I stretched myself on the blanket by his side and quietly told my story, to which he listened attentively, inter rupting me several times in his peculiar way with " Good, good ! " which was always the highest ex pression of his satisfaction. Thanking me much for my report, he said that he would himself ride over to General Lee s headquarters at daybreak, and thus save me the ride there for the present ; that some time during the day I could proceed to Falling Waters, but above all things he desired my imme diate return to Stuart, that he might be summoned to an interview at General E. E. Lee s. The sun had just peeped above the eastern horizon as I galloped up the hill to the tent of General Stuart, whom I had great difficulty in rousing from his slumbers. The 288 RECEPTION AT GENERAL LEES. General proposed to me to ride back with him as soon as his horse was saddled, but this I respectfully declined, saying that I desired first to get the few hours sleep which I was under the impression I had richly deserved. The day was already far advanced, when, after long and ineffectual efforts on the part of my negro William to bring me into a waking condition, I was at last stirred to consciousness by the aroma of my morning cup of coffee. The rich sunlight of October lay full over the landscape, as, refreshed by a hearty breakfast, I again rode along the highway towards Winchester. General Lee s headquarters were exactly in the centre of our army in its encampment, about midway between Bunker Hill and Winchester, at a little place called Falling Waters. On either side of the turnpike stretched for miles the camps of our troops, who plainly showed, in their healthy appear ance and by their jokes and songs, how soon they had forgotten the fatigues and hardships of the recent campaign. I reached General Lee s tents in the afternoon, and was cordially greeted by my com rades, the officers of his Staff, whom I had not seen since the battle of Sharpsburg. The Commander-in- Chief himself received me at once with his invariable kindness, and heard my report of yesterday s pro ceedings with the liveliest interest. BEAUTY OF THE AMERICAN "FALL." 289 The Quartermaster of the army, Colonel Corley, having received a large supply of common English boots of yellow leather for officers and men, I seized the opportunity of purchasing a pair for the very moderate sum of sixteen dollars, and threw them across the pommel of my saddle, where they seemed almost as huge as the seven-league boots of the pan tomime. Just as I was returning home I had the good fortune to encounter Lieutenant Channiiig Price, of our Staff, who had come to headquarters on a special boot-mission of his own, and we enjoyed a most delightful ride back to " The Bower" through the woods, then gay with autumnal tinges. For days afterwards there was perfect quiet at our headquarters. No cannonade shook the air, and the lazy, listless life we led was in harmony with the serenity of the season, which charmed us with the repose and loveliness of the American Fall. The wooded hills and rich fields around "The Bower" abounded in game partridges, pheasants, wild tur keys, hares, and grey squirrels so that I could indulge to the fullest extent my passion for sport. Unfortunately for my bag, my ambition led me to direct my attention chiefly to the wild turkey, which is by no means so easy to kill as I had imagined. It differs very much from the domestic turkey, hav ing a taller and slighter frame, with plumage of VOL. I. T 290 VARIOUS KINDS OF GAME. varied tints from a rich green to a darkish brown. These birds live in flocks of from six to eight, or even more where several families unite. The hen lays her eggs during the month of April in the nest, which is usually built in the open fields, and the young are fully grown about the end of October, at which time they are quite fat from the abundant nourishment they have derived from the fields of Indian corn. The meat is much darker and of more decided flavour than that of the domestic turkey. The best way of getting a shot at them in the autumn is to call them, but a very good way is to hunt them with dogs, which must be trained for the purpose, and which, as soon as a flock has been started, dis perse it and pursue the single birds so long and with such loud barking that they fly in affright to the tree, where the sportsman finds it a simple matter to bring them down. They fly only when pressed in this manner or when suddenly driven out of a thicket, but they run with the celerity of the greyhound, and are extremely wary and cunning. If in Europe one uses the proverb "As stupid as a turkey," in America one says " As smart as a wild gobbler." The Ame rican pheasant is a fine bird, about the size of the English grouse, but the meat is far superior, and I thought it the best game I had ever eaten. The Virginia hare is of very small size, and resembles MY FAVOURITE SPORTING HAUNT. 291 the European rabbit in habits and appearance. It is an easy prey for any fast pointer dog, but the meat is of very inferior quality. Very near " The Bower," on the opposite side of the Opequan, I had discovered a charming little valley, through which ran a sparkling rivulet, a tri butary of the larger stream. This valley was nearly two miles in length, with a breadth of from fifty to one hundred yards, and was enclosed by high rocky cliffs, covered with a dense growth of oaks and pines. In the ravine the richest grass grew abundantly, and alternated with little patches of thick undergrowth and groups of paw-paw trees, the banana-like fruit of which was just ripening. On the immediate banks of the creek gigantic tulip-poplar, hickory, and walnut trees rose to an immense height, inter lacing their branches so as to form a leafy arch over the sequestered glen. Here I found always a large quantity of game, especially the wild turkey, which came at sunrise and at dusk for water ; and here I often directed my steps, or rather the steps of my pretty grey mule " Kitt." This very small but ex ceedingly strong animal I used always for my shoot ing excursions, and I was often laughed at by my comrades as I made my appearance upon her with my legs dangling nearly to the ground. But " Kitt" carried me excellently well for all that, and, with my 292 MY MULE "KITT." weight of fifteen stone ten, took all the ordinary fences and ditches with the greatest ease. She stood perfectly quiet when I shot from her back, and I could throw the reins on her neck and go off for hours together, with the assurance that on my return she would be found grazing or lying down com posedly at the spot where I had left her. Sometimes Bob Sweeney, the banjo-player, accompanied me on my expeditions with the fowling-piece. Bob had the good sense to confine his efforts to the grey squirrels and the partridges, of which he killed large numbers, while I was running my legs off after the larger game. Nevertheless I enjoyed even my un successful turkey-hunting very much, and was fre quently rewarded for my trouble by bagging a pheas ant or a hare. But we had other diversions during this period of military inactivity. Pelham and I had got hold of a yellow-painted army waggon, captured from the Yankees, to which we hitched our horses and drove about all over the country, though the rapid motion of the vehicle with its hard springs over the rough rocky roads nearly shook our souls out of our bodies. At headquarters we had some very agreeable guests, among whom were Colonel Bradley T. John ston, and an intimate friend of General Stuart and myself, Colonel Brien, who had formerly commanded EVENING FESTIVITIES. 293 the 1st Virginian Cavalry, and had resigned his com mission in consequence of his failing health. Every evening before starting for the mansion-house we all assembled guests, officers, couriers, and negroes around a roaring wood-fire in the centre of our en campment, where Sweeney, with his banjo, gave us selections from his repertoire, which were followed by a fine quartette by some of our soldiers, who had excellent voices, the al fresco concert always conclud ing with the famous chorus of " Join in the cavalry" already mentioned, which was much more noisy than melodious. But every evening the negroes would ask for the lively measures of a jig or a breakdown a request invariably granted ; and then these darkies danced within the circle of spectators like dervishes or lunatics the spectators themselves applauding to the echo. On the 7th, a grand ball was to take place at " The Bower," to which Mr D. had invited families from Martinsburg, Shepherdstown, and Charlestown, and in the success of which we all felt a great interest. As an exceptional bit of fun, Colonel Brien and I had secretly prepared a little pantomime, " The Penn sylvania Farmer and his Wife," in which the Colonel was to personate the farmer and I the spouse. Ac cordingly, when the guests had all assembled and the ball was quite en train, the immense couple en- 294 OUR PANTOMIME. tered the brilliantly lighted apartment Brien en veloped in an ample greatcoat, which had been stuffed with pillows until the form of the wearer had as sumed the most enormous proportions ; I dressed in an old white ball-dress of Mrs D. s that had been enlarged in every direction, and sweetly ornamented with half-a-bushel of artificial flowers in my hair. Our success greatly outran our expectations. Stuart, exploding with laughter, scrutinised me closely on all sides, scarcely crediting the fact that within that tall bundle of feminine habiliments dwelt the soul of his Chief of Staff. Again and again we were made to repeat our little play in dumb show, until, getting tired of it and wishing to put a stop to it, I grace fully fainted away and was carried from the room by Brien and three or four assistants, amid the wild ap plause of the company, who insisted on a repetition of the fainting scene. When, in a few moments, I made my appearance in uniform, the laughter and applause recommenced, and Stuart, throwing his arms around my neck in a burlesque of pathos, said, " My dear old Yon, if I could ever forget you as I know you on the field of battle, your appearance as a woman would never fade from my memory." So the joyous night went on with dancing and merri ment, until the sun stole in at the windows, and the NEW UNIFORM COAT FOR STONEWALL. 295 reveille sounding from camp reminded us that the hour of separation had arrived. From a long rest, after the dissipations of the past night, I was roused about noon by General Stuart, with orders to ride, upon some little matters of duty, to the camp of General Jackson. I was also honoured with the pleasing mission of presenting to old Stonewall, as a slight token of Stuart s high re gard, a new and very " stunning" uniform coat, which had just arrived from the hands of a Kichmond tailor. The garment, neatly wrapped up, was borne on the pommel of his saddle by one of our couriers who accompanied me ; and starting at once I reached the simple tent of our great general just in time for dinner. I found him in his old weather-stained coat, from which all the buttons had been clipped long since by the fair hands of patriotic ladies, and which, from exposure to sun and rain and powder- smoke, and by reason of many rents and patches, was in a very unseemly condition. When I had de spatched more important matters, I produced General Stuart s present, in all its magnificence of gilt buttons and sheeny facings and gold lace, and I was heartily amused at the modest confusion with which the hero of many battles regarded the fine uniform from many points of view, scarcely daring to touch it, and at 296 THE GENERAL S RECEPTION OF IT. the quiet way in which, at last, he folded it up care fully, and deposited it in his portmanteau, saying to me, " Give Stuart my best thanks, my dear Major the coat is much too handsome for me, but I shall take the best care of it, and shall prize it highly as a souvenir. And now let us have some dinner." But I protested energetically against this summary dispo sition of the matter of the coat, deeming my mission, indeed, but half executed, and remarked that Stuart would certainly ask me how the uniform fitted its owner, and that I should, therefore, take it as a personal favour if he would put it on. To this he readily assented with a smile, and, having donned the garment, he escorted me outside the tent to the table where dinner had been served in the open air. The whole of the Staff were in a perfect ecstasy at their chiefs brilliant appearance, and the old negro servant, who was bearing the roast-turkey from the fire to the board, stopped in mid-career with a most bewildered expression, and gazed in wonderment at his master as if he had been transfigured before him. Meanwhile, the rumour of the change ran like elec tricity through the neighbouring camps, and the sol diers came running by hundreds to the spot, desirous of seeing their beloved Stonewall in his new attire ; and the first wearing of a fresh robe by Louis XIV., at whose morning toilet all the world was accustomed LEFT BEHIND AS STUARTS LIEUTENANT. 297 to assemble, never created half the sensation at Ver sailles, that was made in the woods of Virginia by the investment of Jackson in this new regulation uniform. Eeaching our camp again in the evening, I was informed by General Stuart that he was to start the next day with a portion of his cavalry on an ex tended military expedition, and that, much as he regretted being constrained to leave me behind, it was yet necessary that I should remain, to fill his place in his absence, to act for him in case of emer gency, and to keep up frequent communications with General Lee. With how much pain and dis content I received this information, I do not care to say ; but I had profited too much by my experi ence in that excellent school of military discipline, the Prussian army, to make any remonstrance. CHAPTER IX. THE EXPEDITION INTO PENNSYLVANIA LIFE AT "THE BOWER DURING GENERAL STUART S ABSENCE THE GENERAL S OWN REPORT OF THE EXPEDITION CAMP LIFE AT "THE BOWER" CONTINUED, AND THREATENED FINAL DEPARTURE, WITH AN INTERLUDE OF TWO DAYS FIGHTING NEAR KEAR- NEYSVILLE A VIVACIOUS VISITOR MILITARY REVIEW AT LAST WE BREAK UP CAMP AT "THE BOWER." THE day came, the 9th of October, and with its earliest streakings of light the bustle of preparation for departure. Arms were cleaned, horses were saddled, and orderlies were busy. About eight o clock the bugle sounded to horse, and soon after wards I, and the rest of my comrades who had been left with me behind, saw, with great depression of spirits, the long column disappear behind the dis tant hills. We determined, however, with a soldier s philosophy, to accept the situation, and to forget our disappointment by indulging, as much as was compatible with the performance of duty, in rides, drives, shooting, and social visiting at "The Bower." NEW ARRIVALS AT HEADQUARTERS. 299 So I resumed my field-sports with very great suc cess, except in respect of the turkeys, often accom panied by Brien, who was an excellent shot. I had now also the satisfaction of greeting on his return to headquarter my very dear friend and com rade, Major Norman Fitzhugh, who had been cap tured, it will be recollected, near Yerdiersville in August, and had spent several weeks in a Northern prison. There was much for us to talk over in the rapid vicissitudes which had been brought about by the progress of the war during our separation. Fitzhugh had been pretty roughly handled at the beginning of his captivity, and the private soldiers of the enemy that took him provoked, probably, by his proud bearing had ill-treated him in the extreme ; but he soon met officers whom he had known before the war in the regular army, and afterwards fared better. On the 10th arrived Major Terrell, who had formerly served on General Eobert- son s staff, and was now under orders to report to General Stuart, and we had again a pleasant little military family at our headquarters. From General Stuart we heard nothing for several days. There were some idle rumours, originating doubtless with the Yankee pickets, that he had been killed, that his whole command had been dis persed, captured, &c. Though we certainly did not 300 STUART S RETURN, AND HIS SUCCESS. in the least credit this nonsense, we were yet not without a good deal of anxiety as to the result of the expedition ; and as I was under the necessity, in any event, of inspecting our line of outposts, I rode on the 12th to Shepherdstown, in the hope of obtaining some more trustworthy information. Here I received the earliest tidings of the General s successful ride through Pennsylvania, the capture of Chambersburg, and his great seizure of horses, and also learned that our daring band of horsemen was already on its rapid return to Virginia. I availed myself of the opportunity while in Shep herdstown of paying my respects to Mrs L., by whom and the other ladies of her household I was wel comed with the utmost kindness. On the morning of the 13th General Stuart ar rived again safely at " The Bower," heralding his approach from afar by the single bugler he had with him, whose notes were somewhat oddly mingled with the thrum of Sweeney s banjo. Our delight in being again together was unspeakable, and was greatly enhanced by the glorious issue of the expedi tion. Many prisoners had been taken ; he had se cured large numbers of horses and mules, and he had inflicted great material damage upon the enemy. All my comrades had mounted themselves on fresh horses, and they came back with wonderful accounts THE PENNSYLVANIAN EAID. 301 of their adventures across the border, what terror and consternation had possessed the burly Dutch farmers of Pennsylvania, and how they groaned in very agony of spirit at seeing their fine horses carried off an act of war which had been much more rudely performed for months and months, not to mention numberless barbarities, never sanctioned in civilised warfare, by the Federal cavalry in Vir ginia. General Stuart gave me a gratifying proof that he had been thinking of me in Pennsylvania, by bringing back with him an excellent bay horse which he had himself selected for my riding. As I am fortunate enough to have General Stuart s own official report in MS. of this memorable enter prise among my papers, I give it here, in the belief that the reader will be glad to follow our horsemen upon their journey in the words of the dashing raider himself. "HEADQUARTERS, CAVALRY DIVISION, October 14, 1862. " To General R. E. LEE, " Through Colonel R. H. Chilton, A. A. General, Army of Northern Virginia. " Colonel, I have the honour to report that on the 9th inst., in compliance with instructions from the Commanding General, Army of Northern Yir- 302 GENERAL STUART S REPORT. ginia, I proceeded on an expedition into Pennsyl vania with a cavalry force of 1800 men and four pieces of horse-artillery, under command of Brig.- Gen. Hampton and Cols. W. H. F. Lee and Jones. This force rendezvoused at Darkesville at 12 o clock, and marched thence to the vicinity of Hedgesville, where it camped for the night. At daylight next morning (October 10th) I crossed the Potomac at M Coy s (between Williamsport and Hancock) with some little opposition, capturing two or three horses of the enemy s pickets. We were told here by the citizens that a large force had camped the night before at Clear Spring, and were supposed to be en route for Cumberland. We proceeded northward until we reached the turnpike leading from Hagers- town to Hancock (known as the National Eoad). Here a signal station on the mountain and most of the party, with their flags and apparatus, were sur prised and captured, and also eight or ten prisoners of war, from whom, as well as from citizens, T learned that the large force alluded to had crossed but an hour ahead of me towards Cumberland, and consisted of six regiments of Ohio troops, and two batteries under General Cox, and were en route, via Cumberland, for the Kanawha. I sent back this intelligence at once to the Commanding General. Striking directly across the National Eoad, I pro- OCCUPATION OF CHAMBERSBURG. 303 ceeded in the direction of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, which point was reached about 12 o clock. I was extremely anxious to reach Hagerstown, where large supplies were stored, but was satisfied from reliable information that the notice the enemy had of my approach, and the proximity of his forces, would enable him to prevent my capturing it. I there fore turned towards Chambersburg. I did not reach this point till after dark in a rain. I did not deem it safe to defer the attack till morning ; nor was it proper to attack a place full of women and children without summoning it first to surrender. I accord ingly sent in a flag of truce and found no military or civil authority in the place ; but some prominent citizens, who met the officers, were notified that the place would be occupied, and if any resistance were made the place would be shelled in three minutes. Brigadier-General Hampton s command being in advance, took possession of the place, and I ap pointed him Military Governor of the city. No inci dents occurred during the night, throughout which it rained continuously. The officials all fled the town on our approach, and no one could be found who would admit that he held office in the place. About 275 sick and wounded in hospital were paroled. During the day a large number of horses of citizens were seized and brought along. The wires were cut 304 PREPARATIONS FOR RETURN. and the railroad obstructed, and Colonel Jones s com mand was sent up the railroad towards Harrisburg to destroy a trestlework a few miles off. He, how ever, reported that it was constructed of iron, and he could not destroy it. Next morning it was ascer tained that a large number of small-arms and muni tions of war were stored about the railroad buildings, all of which that could not be easily brought away were destroyed consisting of about 5000 new muskets, pistols, sabres, and ammunition ; also a large assortment of army clothing. The extensive machine-shops and depot buildings of the railroad and several trains of loaded cars were entirely destroyed. From Chambersburg I decided, after mature consideration, to strike for the vicinity of Leesburg as the best route of return, particularly as Cox s command would have rendered the direction of Cumberland, full of mountain gorges, exceedingly hazardous. The route selected was through an open country. Of course I left nothing undone to prevent the inhabitants from detecting my real route and object. I started directly towards Gettysburg, but, having passed the Blue Eidge, turned back towards Hagerstown for six or eight miles, and then crossed to Maryland by Emmettsburg, where, as we passed, we were hailed by the inhabitants with the most enthusiastic demonstrations of joy. A scouting party DANGERS OF THE HOMEWARD ROUTE. 305 of 150 lancers had just passed towards Gettysburg, and I regretted exceedingly that my march did not admit of the delay necessary to catch them. Taking the route towards Frederick, we intercepted despatches from Colonel Eush (Lancers) to the com mander of the scout, which satisfied me that our whereabouts was still a problem to the enemy. Before reaching Frederick, I crossed the Monocacy, and continued the march throughout the night, via Liberty, New Market, and Monrovia, on the Balti more and Ohio Eailroad, where we cut the telegraph wires and obstructed the railroad. We reached at daylight Hyattstown, on M Clellan s line of com munication with Washington, but we found only a few waggons to capture, and pushed on to Barnes- ville, which we found just vacated by a company of the enemy s cavalry. We had here corroborated what we had heard before, that Stoneman had be tween four and five thousand troops about Poolesville and guarding the river fords. I started directly for Poolesville, but instead of marching upon that point, I avoided it by a march through the woods, leaving it two or three miles to my left, and getting into the road from Poolesville to the mouth of the Mono cacy. Guarding well my flanks and rear, I pushed boldly forward, meeting the head of the enemy s force going towards Poolesville. I ordered the VOL. i. u 306 REPASSAGE OF THE RIVER. charge, which was responded to in handsome style by the advance squadron (Irvine s) of Lee s brigade, which drove back the enemy s cavalry upon the column of infantry advancing to occupy the crest from which the cavalry were driven. Quick as thought Lee s sharpshooters sprang to the ground, and, engaging the infantry skirmishers, held them in check till the artillery in advance came up, which, under the gallant Pelham, drove back the enemy s force upon his batteries beyond the Monocacy, between which and our solitary gun there was a spirited fire for some time. This answered, in con nection with the high crest occupied by our piece, to screen entirely my real movement quickly to the left, making a bold and rapid strike for White s Ford, to force my way across before the enemy at Poolesville and Monocacy could be aware of my design. Although delayed somewhat by about 200 infantry strongly posted in the cliffs over the ford, they yielded to the moral effect of a few shells before engaging our sharpshooters ; and the cross ing of the canal (now dry) and river was effected with all the precision of passing a defile on drill a section of the artillery being sent with the advance and placed in position on the Loudoun side, another piece on the Maryland heights, while Pelham con tinued to occupy the attention of the enemy with RESULTS OF THE RAID. 307 the other, withdrawing from position to position until his piece was ordered to cross. The enemy was marching from Poolesville in the mean time, but came up in line of battle on the Maryland bank, only to receive a thundering salutation, with evident effect, from our guns on this side. I lost not a man killed on the expedition, and there were only a few slight wounds. The enemy s loss is not known, but Pelham s one gun compelled the enemy s battery to change its position three times. "The remainder of the march was destitute of interest. The conduct of the command, and their behaviour towards the inhabitants, are worthy of the highest praise. A few individual cases only were exceptions in this particular. Brigadier- Gene ral Hampton and Colonels Lee, Jones, Wickham, and Butler, and the officers and men under their commands, are entitled to my lasting gratitude for their coolness in danger and cheerful obedience to orders. Unoffending persons were treated with civility, and the inhabitants were generous in their proffers of provisions on the march. We seized and brought over a large number of horses, the property of citizens of the United States. The valuable in formation obtained in this reconnaissance as to the distribution of the enemy s force, was communicated orally to the Commanding General, and need not 308 EESULTS OF THE RAID. be here repeated. A number of public functionaries and prominent citizens were taken captive, and brought over as hostages for our own unoffending citizens, whom the enemy has torn from their homes, and confined in dungeons in the North. One or two of my men lost their way, and are probably in the hands of the enemy.* The results of this expedition, in a moral and political point of view, can hardly be estimated, and the consternation among property- holders in Pennsylvania was beyond description. I am specially indebted to Captain B. I. White (C.S. Cavalry) and to Messrs Hugh Logan and Harbaugh, whose skilful guidance was of immense service to me. My Staff are entitled to the highest praise for untiring energy in the discharge of their duties. I enclose a map of the expedition, drawn by Captain W. W. Blackford to accompany this report ; also a copy of orders enforced during the march. " Believing that the hand of God was clearly manifested in the signal deliverance of my command from danger and the crowning success attending it, I ascribe to Him the praise, the honour, and the glory. I have the honour to be, most respectfully, your obedient servant, (Signed) J. E. B. STUART, Major-General Commanding Cavalry." * "I marched from Chambersburg to Leesburg, 90 miles, vrith LIFE AT "THE BOWER." 309 All now went merrily again at " The Bower." General Stuart, who had been blessed with the satis faction of " winning golden opinions from all sorts of people," was the lightest-hearted of the whole com pany. On the 15th another ball was given in honour of the expedition, and the ladies of the neighbour hood were brought to the festivity in vehicles cap tured in the enemy s country, drawn by fat Pennsyl vania horses. Stuart was, of course, the hero of the occasion, and received many a pretty compliment from fair lips.* Yielding to the urgent solicitations of the ladies and the General, Brien and I again produced our popular extravaganza, which was re ceived, as at its first representation, with the great est applause. The beams of the morrow s sun were just making their way through the intricacies of foliage above our heads, as we lay in camp resting from the fatigues of the night s dancing, when a blast of the bugle brought the whole command to their feet, with its summons to new and serious activity. The enemy in strong only one hour s halt, in thirty-six hours, including a forced passage of the Potomac a march without a parallel in history. " * The ladies of Baltimore presented General Stuart at this time with a pair of golden spurs, as a token of their appreciation, whereupon he adopted for himself the nom de guerre, " Knight of the Golden Spurs," signing his name, in private letters of his, sometimes "K.G.S." 310 RENEWED ATTACK BY THE ENEMY. force, with cavalry, infantry, and artillery, had crossed the Potomac during the latter part of the night, had driven in our pickets, and were resolutely advancing upon the main body of our cavalry, which, having been duly advised of their approach, confronted the far superior numbers of the Yankees in a tolerable position on the turnpike between Shepherdstown and Winchester, near the small hamlet of Kearneysville. General Stuart had already with great promptness reported their advance to Generals Lee and Jackson, asking for reinforcements ; our horses were now sad dled, and we soon passed at a full gallop the mansion- house of " The Bower," where only a few hours before the violin and banjo had sent forth their enlivening strains, riding forward to the scene of action, which already resounded with wilder music. We found a full division of the Federal infantry moving upon us in admirable order, their cavalry operating on either flank, and their artillery seeking to get into position upon some heights in our front, where several pieces had already arrived and had opened a brisk and annoying fire upon our horsemen. Large clouds of dust rising all along the road towards Shepherdstown indicated the approach of other bodies of the enemy, and it was quite plain that our resist ance to odds so overwhelming could be only of short duration. THE ATTACK SUSPENDED. 311 A great part of our men had been dismounted as sharpshooters, and General Stuart and myself endea voured to place them to the greatest advantage, and to animate them to the utmost obstinacy in the fight by our own example, on horseback as we were, and exposed to the continuous fire of the Federal tirail leurs; but we were compelled to withdraw from position to position, all the time happily well pro tected in our retreat by the excellent service of our horse-artillery under the untiring Pelham. During the afternoon we were reinforced by a brigade of infantry, which aided in checking for a time the on ward movement of the enemy, but which did not accomplish as much as we had hoped for, and the order for a still further retreat had just been given, when about dusk the Federals came to a halt, and, to our infinite surprise, turned slowly back for a mile and a half, where we soon saw the main body go quietly into bivouac, and became convinced from their numerous camp-fires that no further attack was to be apprehended during the night if, indeed, satisfied with their success, they had not determined to return the following day into Maryland. General Stuart himself directed the placing of a strong double cordon of outposts, and, having planted two pieces of artillery on a crest of the road, gave orders for the remainder of his troops to bivouac and 312 ENGLISH VISITORS. cook their rations. The General then proceeded with his Staff to headquarters at " The Bower/ which was only a few miles distant. Before we reached there we were overtaken by a drenching shower of rain, and we thankfully accepted Mr D. s kind invitation on our arrival to dry our dripping garments and warm our chilled bodies before a roaring wood-fire in his large and comfortable family drawing-room. Here we found two Englishmen, the Hon. Francis Lawley, the well-known Eichmond correspondent of the Times/ and Mr Vizetelly, who was keeping the readers of the Illustrated London News informed of the events of the war with pen and pencil, with both of whom we were to spend many pleasant hours in camp. These gentlemen were at the time guests at General Lee s headquarters, and had undertaken the long ride to " The Bower " for the satisfaction of one day with Stuart. This satisfaction had been greatly marred by the troublesome advance of the Yankees ; but by snatching a few hours from the night, we secured time enough for a delightful parley, of which the news from the old country formed a considerable part. The fighting was renewed at an early hour the next day ; and, as the enemy was also reported to be advancing in strength upon Chariest own from Har per s Ferry, it appeared to be a general movement of CONTINUED ADVANCE OF THE ENEMY. 313 the whole Federal army. At " The Bower " the breaking up of our camp seemed to indicate a final departure from our soldier s paradise. The tents were struck, the waggons were packed, and every preparation was made for starting at any moment. Our amiable guests, who had come only for a day, had now an additional reason for taking leave, as they were not prepared for accompanying us upon any extended military adventure. The Yankees, fully conscious of their own strength and our comparative weakness, were pressing slowly forward, and General Stuart had given orders to our troops to offer only a feeble resistance, and retire de liberately to an easily defensible position, about a mile and a half from " The Bower," where our artil lery had been eligibly posted on a range of hills forming a wide semicircle. About nine o clock General E. E. Lee arrived at this point ; A. P. Hill s division was on the march to reinforce us ; and it seemed clear that the further progress of the Federals, certainly any attempt on their part to cross the Opequan, would be energetically opposed. At this time I received orders from General Stuart to proceed with a number of couriers at once to the little town of Smithfield, about twelve miles distant, where we had a small body of cavalry, to watch the enemy s movements on our right, and establish frequent com- 314 ANXIETIES AT " THE BOWER." munications with Jackson at Bunker Hill only a few miles off. En route I had to pass in the immediate neighbourhood of " The Bower," where I found the ladies of the family all assembled in the verandah, in a state of great excitement and anxiety. I did my best to console my fair friends, who wept as they saw me ; but I could not help feeling a good deal of soli citude with regard to their position, since they would certainly be within range of the artillery fire ; and should the enemy get possession of the place by any accident, it could hardly be hoped that they would not revenge themselves savagely upon the household for all the kindness we had received at their hands. It was about mid- day when I reached Smithfield, which I found occupied by a squadron picketing the turnpike to Shepherdstown and Harper s Ferry. Our brigade stationed at Charlestown had evacuated the place before the superior numbers of the enemy, and retired in the direction of Berryville, so that there was nothing in the way of the Federal advance but these our pickets, and the dreaded blue uniforms were expected by the excited inhabitants to make their appearance every minute. Accordingly, I had not been more than an hour in the village, when our outposts from the Shepherdstown road came gallop ing along in furious haste, reporting a tremendous host of Yankee cavalry right behind them in hot FALSE ALARMS DANGER OF LEE. 315 pursuit. I rode forward immediately with about fifty men to meet the enemy, but found, as is usual in such cases of alarm, that the danger was by no means so imminent as had been represented, the Yankees having halted on a little hill about two miles from town, and their whole force consisting of a squadron of horsemen, which turned back on my approach, and moved off when a few carbine-shots had been exchanged. This squadron had come from Harper s Ferry, along a by-road which struck the turnpike at a point about midway between Kearneys- ville and Smithfield, which point they had reached just ten minutes after General Lee with a very small escort had passed by. Our Commander-in-Chief had thus very narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the enemy, and I thought it necessary to despatch a courier at once to General Stuart to in form him that the road was not clear. During the afternoon the alarm was renewed, this time in the direction of Charlestown ; but industri ously as I endeavoured to discover the whereabouts of the Yankee infantry, who had been plainly seen advancing along the turnpike with glistening bay onets, and the dust rising on their line of march, I could obtain no trace of them whatever, after a ride of four miles towards their supposed quarter of approach. Late in the evening I received a report 316 AGAIN AT "THE BOWEK. from Colonel Jones, now commanding Eobertson s brigade, that the hostile forces were retreating again towards Harper s Ferry, and that he hoped to be again in occupancy of Charlestown even before his message could reach me. The firing in the direction of " The Bower " had now ceased ; and as I felt well assured that the two Federal columns were in cor responding movement, I rightly conjectured that the Yankees were also retreating there. So I established my men and myself at the house of an interesting young widow, who, with her sister, enlivened our evening with songs and spirited discourse. Agreeably with my expectation, I received orders early next morning to return to " The Bower," which not a little delighted me. It was a sparkling, beau tiful morning of autumn, and I enjoyed the ride home the more for being fortunate enough firing from my horse s back with my revolver to kill a grey squirrel, which, as our mess arrangements had been thrown into utter disorder by the events of the last two days, was gladly welcomed the same evening on our dinner table. Meanwhile our tents had been again put up at " The Bower," and no one who had not visited the place in our absence would have supposed that any change had occurred in the interim. The Federal army, after considerable fighting the previous day, had recrossed the Potomac, their rearguard being RETURN OF OUR ENGLISH GUEST. 317 badly cut up by a dashing charge of Lee s cavahy. The Federal newspapers called the movement a "grand and successful reconnaissance in force/ and it had evidently been undertaken to counteract a little the effect, and abate the ill-feeling, that had been produced all over the North by Stuart s expedi tion into Pennsylvania. Once more established in quietude at " The Bower," we received from our kind friends, Mr D. and his family, numberless proofs of their great satisfaction in having us near them. In accordance with his promise, Mr Vizetelly came now to pay us a longer visit, unaccompanied, however, to our regret, by Mr Lawley, who had been obliged to go to Eichmond for the purpose of sending off his regular letter to the Times. Our new guest was an old campaigner, who accom modated himself very readily to the hardships of camp life, and was soon established in his own tent, which I had caused to be erected for him in the immediate neighbourhood of that of Blackford and myself. He was not long in becoming a general fa vourite at headquarters. Eegularly after dinner, our whole family of officers, from the commander down to the youngest lieutenant, used to assemble in his tent, squeezing ourselves into narrow quarters to hear his entertaining narratives, which may possibly have 318 EVENING SCENES AND OCCUPATIONS. received a little embellishment in the telling, but which embraced a very wide circle of human experi ence, and had a certain ease and brilliancy beyond most such recitals. The " ingenuous youth " of our little circle drank in delightedly the intoxications of Mabille and the Chateau des Fleurs, or followed the story-teller with eager interest as he passed from the gardens and the boudoirs of Paris to the stirring in cidents and picturesque scenery of the Italian cam paign, which he had witnessed as a guest of Garibaldi. V. was greatly pleased with our musical entertain ments ; and when, after talking for several hours, he had become exhausted, and when, from the gathering darkness, we could only distinguish the place where he was reclining by the glow of his pipe, and thus lost all the play of the features in his rehearsal, we proceeded to our great central camp-fire, there to renew the negro dances to the music of the banjo scenes which Vizetelly s clever pencil has placed before the European public in the pages of the Illus trated London News. Less successful was our friend in his efforts to improve the cuisine of our negro camp cook, and we often had the laugh upon him especially when one day he produced in triumph a roast pig, with the conventional apple in its mouth, which we found to be raw on one side and burned to a cinder on the other. This work of art had been AN AUCTION OF WINES. 319 prepared under his own personal management, and was served as cochon a Vltalienne, but it proved by no means so happy an accident as the original roast pig, done a la Chinoise. Our supplies now began to fail in the country around "The Bower." The partridges had grown exceedingly wild, and we were obliged, each in his turn, to make long excursions into the woods and fields to keep our mess-table furnished. I was there fore very much gratified when my friend Eosser appeared early one morning at my tent, with the news that there was to be a large auction sale of native wines and other supplies that very day, at a plantation only eight miles off in the direction of Charlestown. As all was quiet along our lines, we at once determined to attend the sale, so the horses were hitched to the yellow-painted waggon, and we were soon proceeding at a rapid trot over the rocky road, amid the loud outcries and bitter complaints of my gallant Colonel of the 5th Virginia Cavalry, who de clared that he had never in his life experienced such joltings. Arrived at the place of destination, we bought largely, making frequent trials and tastings of Corinth and blackberry wines, and returned to camp with our waggon well filled with stores of various kinds. Among our purchases was an immense pot of lard, which we placed in the back part of the wag- 320 WE ARE "SPILT" ON OUR RETURN. gon, regarding it as an acquisition of great value for our camp biscuit-bakery. We had not, however, counted on the melting influence of the sun upon the lard, and the consequence was that with every jolt of the waggon over the frequent stones in the road, the fluid mass sent its jets of grease in a fountain over the hams, potatoes, and apples that covered the bot tom of the vehicle. This annoyance, provoking as it was, little disturbed our temper, which had been somewhat mellowed by the frequent imbibitions of the country wine (in the way of tasting) ; and we continued our drive at a rattling pace, varying our discourse from the gay to the sentimental. We had just reached the topic of the tender passion, when, all unheeding the roadway before us, I bumped the waggon against a large stone with so severe a shock that Eosser was thrown out far to the left, while I settled down, after a tremendous leap, far to the right. Fortunately, beyond some slight contusions, neither of us sustained any damage by this rude winding- up of our romantic conversation. The horses were reasonable enough not to run off, and we quietly con tinued our drive to headquarters, but we talked no more sentiment on the way. Major Terrell, having been ordered to Winchester in attendance on a court-martial, had left his excel lent horses to my exclusive use, and my own animals, REVIEW OF HAMPTON S CAVALRY. 321 enlarged in number by the addition of the stout Pennsylvanian, had very much improved by their long rest and rich grazing, so that my stable was now extensive, and we had many a pleasant ride with our fair lady friends. On Sunday, the 26th of October, there was a grand review of Hampton s brigade, which was attended by the ladies from far and near, and as the day was lovely, it proved a fine military spectacle. When the review was over, the officers of our own and Hampton s Staff assembled to witness the trial of a diminutive one -pounder gun, which turned out to be of very little account, and afterwards we had some equestrian sports, matches in horse- racing, fence -jumping, &c. Captain Blackford, who, with a thoroughbred chestnut mare, attempted to take a high fence just in advance of Stuart and myself, had a severe fall, which was fortunately unattended with serious consequences. Eemarking upon it, that, in my opinion, the fault lay not so much with the horse as with the rider, Stuart said, " Hear old Von, how grand he talks ! " Then turning to me, he added, in a banter, " Why don t you jump the fence yourself, if you know how to do it better?" I had never leaped my heavy-built Pennsylvanian as yet, and I was in doubt whether he was equal to the lofty bar rier, but as there was no possible escape from Stuart s challenge, I struck my spurs into his sides, and over VOL. i. x 322 FAREWELL TO "THE BOWER." he went like a deer, amidst the loud applause of the General himself and other spectators. I had now the laugh on my side, and very soon afterwards the opportunity of bantering Stuart, when he could say and do nothing in reply. Eeturning to camp, we took, as a short cut, a road that led through a field of Indian corn ; upon getting to the farther end of which, we found that the fence, usually pulled down at this place, had been recently put up, making a formidable barrier to our farther progress. Stuart and others observing this, turned off to the right, towards the main road ; but seizing my opportunity, I cried out to him, " General, this is the way ; " and clearing the five -barred fence in a splendid leap, I arrived at headquarters several minutes in advance of my comrades, whom I welcomed upon their ap proach, rallying my chief very much for not having followed my example. Our long and delightful sojourn now drew rapidly to its close. Guest after guest departed, and every day the indications of a speedy departure became plainer. At length, on the 29th of October, a hazy, rainy autumn day, the marching orders came, and the hour arrived for the start. A number of the Staff did not fail to indulge in the obvious reflection that nature wept in sympathy with us at the separa tion. With heavy hearts indeed, we left the beautiful FAREWELL TO "THE BOWER." 323 spot, and bade adieu to its charming, kindly inha bitants. Silently we rode down the hill, and along the margin of the clear Opequan stream, musing on the joyous hours that had passed away hours which those few of our dashing little band of cavaliers that survived the mournful finale of the great war, will ever hold in grateful remembrance. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. 3 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW I | DEC 2 2 1989 I ^BTOWSCJAJilx j ^ MAR 05 1991 4 I mm iY6i| j : 1 < t UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DD6 BERKELEY, CA 94720 s YB 48384 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 5~7 1 24 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY