ON our arrival at Culpepper we found it greatly improved in aspect. True, the roads were still nearly impassable; but the country round, under the influence of frequent rains and the mild air of April, had clothed itself in tender verdure, interspersed here and there with blooming patches by the now blossoming peach orchards. Our headquarters were established not more than a quarter of a mile from Culpepper, on a height thickly covered with pine and cedar trees, skirted by the road leading to Orange Court-house, and commanding a view of the village and the surrounding country, picturesquely bordered in the distance by the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Only W. Lee's and Fitz Lee's brigades were with us. The former picketed the fords in the immediate vicinity of Culpepper, and the latter was stationed higher up the river. Hampton's command had been left

VOL. XCIX.-NO. DCVII.

behind for recruiting, most of its dismounted men having been furloughed to their distant homes in Mississippi and the Carolinas to supply themselves with fresh horses. Our animals were now beginning to get into better condition, forage having become more abundant, and being valuably supplemented by the new grass and clover. Provisions for the men had also grown more plentiful, and our kind friends in the neighbourhood did their best to keep the mess-table of the General and his staff copiously supplied. In the mean time, after the battle of Fredericksburg, the supreme command had been transferred into the hands of General Hooker, an officer who had gained a high reputation by his gallantry-he was nicknamed by his men "Fighting Joe"-and the good management of his division, but who eventually proved himself to be utterly incapable of commanding a large army. Great

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credit, however, was due to him for having availed himself of the interval of inaction to improve his cavalry, which was now completely recruited, men and horses, and augmented by fresh brigades; while new order and discipline had been instilled into the entire force. A large part of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, as it was still called, had been concentrated on the Upper Rappahannock, and it was this fact which had caused our rapid departure from Fredericksburg. The restless activity of our neighbours on the other side of the river, their constant marching and countermarching, indicated that some serious enterprise was impending; and the renewal of the picket-firing created the daily expectation, after so long an interval of tranquillity, of a brush with our antagonists. We had already, on the 13th, been brought into the saddle by a sudden alarm, but had found, on hastening to the front, that the gallantry and good firing of our pickets had foiled every effort of the Federals to effect a crossing over the Rappahannock. On the following morning, however, we were abruptly startled by a report that the Yankees had forced a passage at several points of the river, had driven our pickets back, and were advancing in large force upon Culpepper. All was hurry and confusion at headquarters on the receipt of this intelligence; tents were struck, horses saddled, waggons loaded and teams harnessed, for an immediate start the General and his staff galloping off to throw ourselves, with W. Lee's brigade, across the enemy's path. It was on the plain near Brandy Station that battle-ground so often mentioned already that we once more encountered the advancing foe, and before long the action developed along all our line. The enemy fought with great obstinacy, and at first we had to yield ground to them for some distance; but in the course of the afternoon we suc

ceeded,by a general and united movement in advance, in driving them back across the river. The fighting was only kept up during the evening by an exchange of firing between the Yankee guns mounted on an old redoubt close to the opposite shore and our batteries on two hills, about a mile apart, in the space between which Generals Stuart and Lee, with their respective staffs, had taken up their position, carelessly stretched on the ground, chatting and laughing and watching the effect of the shells crossing each other over their heads, as unconcerned as if there were no enemy within miles. I myself was posted a little to the right, narrowly observing, by the aid of the excellent glass I had captured from General Pope's baggage, the movements of the enemy, and wondering in my mind how it was a numerous group of officers so close under the Yankee cannons had thus long escaped their attention. Suddenly I saw the officer commanding the Federal battery mount the parapet, and, after scanning the knot of officers through his glass, assist with his own hands in pointing one of the guns upon them. In spite of my warning, which was received with mockery, the joyous assembly continued their seance till, a few seconds after, the shot was heard, and a shell fell plump in their midst, burying in the earth with itself one of General Lee's gauntlets, which lay on the ground only a few feet from the General himself, and bespattering all who were nearest to it with earth and mud. It was now my turn to laugh as I beheld my gallant comrades stampede right and left from the fatal spot, chasing their frightened horses, followed by a rapid, though happily less well-directed, succession of shots from the enemy's guns. With this little incident closed the fight for that day. A heavy shower now descended, lasting many hours, which, in the absence of the shelter of our tents, left unpitched in the hurry and

excitement of the events of the day, caused us to spend a night of wretched discomfort.

General Stuart was led to believe that, the river being much swollen by the rain, the Yankees would leave us undisturbed; but at the very earliest gleam of day, this supposition was dispelled by the intelligence that the enemy, strongly reinforced, had succeeded again in forcing a passage to our side; and once more, wet through and shivering, we were summoned to the front. The conflict, as on so many previous occasions, commenced near Brandy Station; but, notwithstanding their vastly superior numbers, our adversaries did not make a very obstinate stand, probably owing to the rapid rising of the Rappahannock, which in a few hours more might be rendered impassable. Stuart, desirous on this very account to draw the enemy into a battle, vigorously pushed his troops forward after the retreating foe, but was unable to prevent the safe crossing of the entire cavalry force of the enemy, with the exception of their rearguard, composed of two squadrons of the 3d Indiana regiment. These we brought to a stand a few hundred yards from a mill-creek which intersects the road at a distance of about half a mile from the river, and generally presents scarcely a foot's depth of water, but which was now swollen to a wide and rapid stream not to be crossed, even at the shallowest points, save with the greatest difficulty. As soon as the head of our column approached this spot, a number of dismounted sharpshooters, posted here to protect the Yankees' rear, opened a severe fire, killing and wounding several of our men. Stuart at once ordered a squadron of our 9th Virginia regiment, who were leading the advance, to charge. Having been refused the General's permission to join in the attack, I galloped, on my own account, about a hundred yards to the right of the

road in the direction of the hostile sharpshooters, whose particular attention I at once engaged, a number of bullets flying round my head unpleasantly quick and near. Having got within about forty yards of their position, I shouted out to them to surrender; but in the fancied security offered by the broad foaming stream, which flowed between them and their assailants, they treated my summons with defiance, and answered it only by a brace of bullets, one of which nearly cut off a lock of my hair. Exasperated out of all patience at this, I spurred my horse and dashed with a tremendous leap into the middle of the creek, and for a moment its waters seemed to close over my head; but quickly surmounting the torrent, my brave horse gallantly swam to the opposite shore, and, by a strenuous effort of every sinew, succeeded in scrambling up the steep bank to the high ground above. The boldness and rapidity of this feat seemed to perfectly paralyse the objects of my wrath, a corporal and a private of the 3d Indiana Cavalry, who, as I pounced upon them with uplifted sword, threw away their arms and begged for mercy on their knees.

In the first excitement, I felt but little inclined to heed their prayers, seeing that but a few minutes before they had shot down one of our men, and had spent their last cartridge in the attempt to do the like for me; but the poor wretches were so terrorstricken, and begged so hard for their lives, that I was content to commute the penalty of death to treating them with just such a cold bath as I had had; and so I sent them through the water to the other side, where one of our couriers, who had hastened up to my assistance, took them in charge. In the mean time, the fight had ended in our favour. The enemy, after a short but severe combat, had broken in utter confusion, and had been chased by our men across the creek to the river,

where a heavy fire from the opposite bank put an end to the pursuit. Some thirty prisoners and horses fell into our hands, and the enemy lost severely besides in killed and wounded-a good number of their men having been unhorsed in the hurried passage of the creek, and whelmed in the angry waves. Stuart, who had witnessed the whole course of my little exploit, was much amused at the plight in which I returned, soaked through, and beplastered with mud. He

had never, he said, expected to see me emerge after my plunge; and added, that as I climbed up the bank I looked like a terrapin crawling out of the mud. some little time longer the firing was kept up by the artillery on both sides; but as the enemy soon entirely disappeared from the opposite side of the Rappahannock, we returned to our camping ground, pitched our tents, and established once more, in regular order, our cavalry headquarters.

As the continued rains rendered the crossing of the Rappahannock impracticable, an interval of tranquillity succeeded these few days of conflict and excitement. It speeded away, however, rapidly enough, amidst visits in the neighbourhood and pleasant horseback excursions in the company of our lady acquaintances. On the 21st I had an agreeable surprise in a visit from a fellow-countryman, Captain Scheibert, of the Prussian engineers. He had been sent on a mission by his Government to take note as an eyewitness of the operations of the war, and derive what profit he could from its experiences. I had already seen him at General R. E. Lee's headquarters, where he was a guest of the General's, for he had been several weeks with our army, and was now about, at my urgent prayer, to make a further stay with us. My tent and its comforts, sadly curtailed however by the results of the heavy rains, which on several occasions had completely deluged it, were gladly shared with my visitor. Just as at our old headquarters, near Fredericksburg, we had been annoyed by the aggressions of straying sheep, we now suffered from the daily irruptions upon our camp of pigs exploring and devouring everything that fell under their snouts. Not seldom,

indeed, these intruders had the impudence to break into my tent in the middle of the night, having set their fancy on a pair of large cavalry boots of mine, which once or twice they succeeded in dragging off far into the woods, giving my negro Henry and myself infinite trouble before we could recover these precious parts of my accoutrement. Our evenings were mostly passed in the village, in the company of our lady acquaintances, whom Scheibert delighted by his excellent pianoforte-playing, to say nothing of the amusement they derived from his original practice with the idiom and pronunciation of the English language. On the 28th, Stuart and the members of his staff, including our visitor, dined by invitation under the roof of an old widow lady, a very particular friend of mine, who resided on a pretty little plantation close to Culpepper. Mrs S. was a poetess, and had exercised her talents to the glorification of Lee and Jackson, so that when, after dinner, she asked permission to read a new poem, we all naturally expected that it was now Stuart's turn. What was my astonishment, however, and embarrassment to find myself the theme of her eloquent and touching verses, wherein my praises were most flat

teringly sounded! Blushing, and transfixed to my chair with stupefaction, as I heard the loud applause which greeted the conclusion of the piece, for a moment I was at a loss how to behave; then suddenly rousing myself, I advanced towards Mrs S., and in the fashion of the knights of old, I knelt on one knee, and with a kiss mutely impressed my thanks on the hand from which I received my poetical diploma of merit. "That won't do, Von," cried out Stuart, and, stepping forward, he printed a hearty kiss on the old lady's cheek -a liberty which she received with a very good grace, saying, "General, I have always known you to be a very gallant soldier, but from this moment I believe you to be the bravest of the brave." Music, dance, and merriment chased away the remaining hours of the day, and it was late in the night ere we reached our headquarters, and retired to rest, little divining how soon we should be roused up again.

It was about three in the morning when I was awakened by the General himself, who informed me he had just received intelligence that the enemy were approaching the river at several points with a strong force composed of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and that we must hasten to the front without delay. The words were no sooner spoken than the bugle sounded to horse, and a few minutes after we galloped away from the camp, where all were busy with preparations for moving at a moment's notice. We reached the famous plateau near Brandy Station a little after daybreak, and found there W. Lee's brigade in line of battle, and two batteries of artillery in position. Fitz Lee's command arrived soon afterwards; and on this spot, so favourable for defence, Stuart decided to await the enemy's advance, making all preparations for a desperate resistance. A dense fog, which clung to the plain, precluded all observation of the

hostile movements; but our pickets, which by this time had been forced back from the river and were receding towards us before vastly superior numbers, reported that a large body of troops of all arms had passed over to our side of the Rappahannock, and, to judge from the sounds which reached them, still more were crossing on severa! pontoon bridges. In the midst of the anxious suspense in which the morning passed away a prisoner was brought in, who, misled by the fog, had ridden straight into our lines, and as he was led up to us by two of our men, he was vainly trying to make himself understood. Addressing this excited gentleman in French, I found that he was a Belgian artillery officer who, anxious to have the best opportunity possible of witnessing the operations in the field, had attached himself to the staff of some Yankee General, temporarily adopting the Federal uniform. My new acquaintance very naturally declined to afford us any information as to the enemy's strength and their intentions; but, observing how small comparatively were our numbers, he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "Gentlemen, I can only give you one piece of advice—that is, to try and make your escape as quickly as possible; if not, your capture by the large army in front of you is a certainty." I replied, laughing, "That we preferred to wait a little while yet, and that it was our habit always to fight before retreating." Our brave Belge, with great earnestness, claimed his neutral privileges, and exhibited a profound disinclination to be sent as a captive to Richmond; but, being taken in full Yankee uniform, no exception could be made in his case, and accordingly he was eventually sent, with other prisoners, to that objectionable locality, there to await his regular exchange.

Hour after hour passed away in this trying state of uncertainty, until at last, towards mid-day, the