After the battle of Fredericksburg, in December, 1862, there was a lull
in the storm of war. The men on the outposts along the Rappahannock had
a sort of truce to hostilities, and began swapping tobacco and coffee,
just as the soldiers of Wellington and Soult, on the eve of a great
battle, filled their canteens from the same stream. At that time,
Stuart determined to make a Christmas raid about Dumfries, which was on
Hooker's line of communication with Washington. I went with him. He got
many prisoners, and wagons loaded with bon-bons and all the good things
of the festive season. It made us happy, but almost broke the sutlers'
hearts. A regiment of Pennsylvania cavalry left their camp on the
Occoquan, and their Christmas turkeys, and came out to look for us.
They had better have stayed at home; for all the good they did was to
lead Stuart's cavalry into their camp as they ran through it. After
leaving Dumfries, Stuart asked me to take Beattie and go on ahead. The
road ran through a dense forest, and there was danger of an ambuscade,
of which every soldier has a horror who has read of Braddock's defeat.
Beattie and I went forward at a gallop, until we met a large body of
cavalry. As no support was in sight, several officers made a dash at
us, and at the same time opened such a fire as to show that peace on
earth and good will to men, which the angels and morning stars had sung
on that day over 1800 years ago, was no part of their creed. The very
fact that we did not run away ought to have warned them that somebody
was behind us. When the whole body had got within a short distance of
us, Stuart, who had heard the firing, came thundering up with the 1st
Virginia cavalry. All the fun was over with the Pennsylvanians then.
There was no more merry Christmas for them. Wade Hampton was riding by
the side of Stuart. He went into the fight and fought like a common
(or, rather, an uncommon) trooper. The combat was short and sharp, and
soon became a rout; the Federal cavalry ran right through their camp,
and gave a last look at their turkeys as they passed. But alas! they
were "grease, but living grease no more" for them. There was probably
some method in their madness in running through their camp. They
calculated, with good reason, that the temptation would stop the
pursuit.
A few days ago I read, in a book giving the history of the telegraph in
the war, the despatch sent to Washington by the operator near there:
"The 17th Pennsylvania cavalry just passed here, furiously charging to
the rear." When we got to Burke's Station, on the Orange and Alexandria
Railroad, while his command was closing up, Stuart put his own operator
in charge of the instrument, and listened to a telegraphic conversation
between the general commanding at Fairfax Court-House and the
authorities at Washington. In order to bewilder and puzzle them, he
sent several messages, which put them on a false scent. Just before
leaving, he sent a message to Quartermaster-General Meigs, complaining
of the inferior quality of the mules recently furnished by him. The
wire was then cut. Having learned by the telegraph that Fairfax
Court-House was held by a brigade of infantry, Stuart marched around
north of it, and went into Loudoun--a land flowing with plenty. He made
his headquarters at Col. Rogers's, near Dover, and rested until the
next day. On the morning he left, I went to his room, and asked him to
let me stay behind for a few days with a squad of men. I thought I
could do something with them. He readily assented. I got nine
men--including, of course, Beattie--who volunteered to go with me. This
was the beginning of my career as a partisan. The work I accomplished
in two or three days with this squad induced him to let me have a
larger force to try my fortune. I took my men down into Fairfax, and in
two days captured twenty cavalrymen, with their horses, arms, and
equipments. I had the good luck, by mere chance, to come across a
forester named John Underwood, who knew every rabbit-path in the
county. He was a brave soldier, as well as a good guide. His death a
few months afterward, at the hands of a deserter from our own army, was
one of the greatest losses I sustained in the war. I dismounted to
capture one of the picket posts, who could be seen by the light of
their fire in the woods. We walked up within a few yards of it. The
men, never suspecting danger, were absorbed in a game of euchre. I
halted, and looked on for a minute or two, for I hated to spoil their
sport. At last I fired a shot, to let them know that their relief had
come. Nobody was hurt; but one fellow was so much frightened that he
nearly jumped over the tops of the trees.
They submitted gracefully to the fate of war. I made them lie down by a
fence, and left a mounted man to stand guard over them while I went to
capture another post about two miles off. These were Vermont cavalry,
and being from the land of steady habits did not indulge in cards like
their New York friends, whom I had just left in the fence corner. I
found them all sound asleep in a house, except the sentinel. Their
horses were tied to the trees around it. The night was clear and crisp
and cold. As we came from the direction of their camp, we were mistaken
for the patrol until we got upon them. The challenge of the sentinel
was answered by an order to charge, and it was all over with the boys
from the Green Mountains. Their surprise was so great that they forgot
that they had only pistols and carbines. If they had used them, being
in a house, they might have driven us off. They made no resistance. The
next day I started back to rejoin Stuart, who was near Fredericksburg.
I found him in his tent, and when I reported what I had done, he
expressed great delight. So he agreed to let me go back with fifteen
men and try my luck again. I went and never returned. I was not
permitted to keep the men long. Fitz Lee complained of his men being
with me, and so I had to send them back to him. But while I had them I
kept things lively and humming. I made many raids on the cavalry
outposts, capturing men, arms, and horses. Old men and boys had joined
my band. Some had run the gauntlet of Yankee pickets, and others swam
the Potomac to get to me. Most men love the excitement of fighting, but
abhor the drudgery of camps. I mounted, armed and equipped my command
at the expense of the United States government. There was a Confederate
hospital in Middleburg, where a good many wounded Confederate soldiers
had been left during our Maryland campaign a few months before. These
were now convalescent. I utilized them. They would go down to Fairfax
on a raid with me, and then return to the hospital. When the Federal
cavalry came in pursuit, they never suspected that the cripples they
saw lying on their couches or hobbling about on crutches were the men
who created the panic at night in their camps. At last I got one of the
cripples killed, and that somewhat abated their ardor.
There are many comic as well as tragic elements that fill up the drama
of war. One night I went down to Fairfax to take a cavalry picket. When
I got near the post I stopped at the house of one Ben Hatton. I had
heard that he had visited the picket post that day to give some
information to them about me. I gave him the choice of Castle Thunder
or guiding me through the pines to the rear of the picket.
Ben did not hesitate to go with me. Like the Vicar of Bray, he was in
favor of the party in power. There was a deep snow on the ground, and
when we got in sight of the picket fire, I halted and dismounted my
men. As Ben had done all I wanted of him, and was a non-combatant, I
did not want to expose him to the risk of getting shot, and so I left
him with a man named Gall (generally called "Coonskin," from the cap he
wore), and Jimmie, an Irishman, to guard our horses, which we left in
the pines. With the other men, I went to make the attack on foot. The
snow being soft, we made no noise, and had them all prisoners almost
before they got their eyes open. But just then a fusilade was opened in
the rear, where our horses were. Leaving a part of my men to bring on
the prisoners, we mounted the captured horses and dashed back to the
place where I had dismounted, to meet what I supposed was an attempt of
the enemy to make a reprisal on me. When I got there I found Ben Hatton
lying in a snowbank, shot through the thigh, but Jimmy and Coonskin had
vanished. All that Ben knew was that he had been shot; he said that the
Yankees had attacked their party, but whether they had carried off
Jimmie and Coonskin, or Jimmie and Coonskin had carried them, he
couldn't tell. What made the mystery greater was that all our horses
were standing just as we left them, including the two belonging to the
missing men. With our prisoners and spoil, we started home, Ben Hatton
riding behind one of the men. Ben had lost a good deal of blood, but he
managed to hold on. When we got into the road we met a body of
Wyndham's cavalry coming up to cut us off. They stopped and opened fire
on us. I knew this was a good sign, and that they were not coming to
close quarters in the dark. We went on by them. By daybreak I was
twenty miles away. As soon as it was daylight, Wyndham set out full
speed up the pike to catch me. He might as well have been chasing the
silver-footed antelope,
That gracefully and gayly springs,
As o'er the marble courts of kings.
I was at a safe distance before he started. He got to Middleburg during
the day, with his horses all jaded and blown. He learned there that I
had passed through about the dawn of day. He returned to camp with the
most of his command leading their broken-down horses. In fact, his
pursuit had done him more damage than my attack. He was an English
officer, trained in the cavalry schools of Europe; but he did not
understand such business. This affair was rather hard on Ben Hatton. He
was the only man that got a hurt; and that was all he got. As it was
only a flesh wound, it healed quickly; but, even if he had died from
it, fame would have denied her requiem to his name. His going with me
had been as purely involuntary as if he had been carried out with a
halter round his neck to be hanged. I left him at his house, coiled up
in bed, within a few hundred yards of the Yankee pickets. He was too
close to the enemy for me to give him any surgical assistance; and he
had to keep his wound a profound secret in the neighborhood, for fear
the Yankees would hear of it and how he got it. If they had ever found
it out, Ben's wife would have been made a widow. In a day or so,
Coonskin and Jimmie came in, but by different directions. We had given
them up for lost. They trudged on foot through the snow all the way up
from Fairfax. Neither one knew that Ben Hatton had been shot. Each one
supposed that all the others were prisoners, and he the only one left
to tell the tale of the disaster. Both firmly believed that they had
been attacked by the enemy, and, after fighting as long as Sir John
Falstaff did by Shrewsbury clock, had been forced to yield; but they
could not account for all our horses being where we left them. The
mistakes of the night had been more ludicrous than any of the incidents
of Goldsmith's immortal comedy, "She Stoops to Conquer." By a
comparison of the statements of the three, I found out that the true
facts were these: In order to keep themselves warm, they had walked
around the horses a good deal and got separated. Coonskin saw Jimmie
and Ben Hatton moving about in the shadow of a tree, and took them to
be Yankees. He immediately opened on them, and drew blood at the first
fire. Hatton yelled and fell. Jimmie, taking it for granted that
Coonskin was a Yankee, returned his fire; and so they were dodging and
shooting at each other from behind trees, until they saw us come
dashing up. As we had left them on foot a short while before, it never
occurred to them that we were coming back on the captured horses. After
fighting each other by mistake and wounding Ben Hatton, they had run
away from us. It was an agreeable surprise to them to find that I had
their horses. Ben Hatton will die in the belief that the Yankees shot
him; for I never told him any better. I regret that historical truth
forbids my concluding this comedy according to the rules of the
drama--with a marriage.
FAUQUIER COUNTY, VA., Feb. 28, 1863.
GENERAL:--I have the honor to report, that at four o'clock on the
morning of the 26th instant I attacked and routed, on the Ox road,
in Fairfax, about two miles from Germantown, a cavalry outpost,
consisting of a lieutenant and fifty men. The enemy's loss was one
lieutenant and three men killed, and five captured; number of
wounded not known; also thirty-nine horses, with all their
accoutrements, brought off. There were also three horses killed.
I did not succeed in gaining the rear of the post, as I expected,
having been discovered by a vidette when several hundred yards off,
who fired, and gave the alarm, which compelled me to charge them in
front. In the terror and confusion occasioned by our terrific
yells, the most of them saved themselves by taking refuge in a
dense thicket, where the darkness effectually concealed them. There
was also a reserve of one hundred men half a mile off who might
come to the rescue. Already encumbered with prisoners and horses,
we were in no condition for fighting. I sustained no loss. The
enemy made a small show of fight, but quickly yielded. They were in
log houses, with the chinking knocked out, and ought to have held
them against a greatly superior force, as they all had carbines.
My men behaved very gallantly, although mostly raw recruits. I had
only twenty-seven men with me. I am still receiving additions to my
numbers.
If you would let me have some of the dismounted men of the First
Cavalry, I would undertake to mount them. I desire some written
instructions from you with reference to exportation of products
within the enemy's lines. I wish the bearer of this to bring back
some ammunition, also some large-size envelopes and blank paroles.
I have failed to mention the fact the enemy pursued me as far as
Middleburg, without accomplishing anything, etc....
JNO. S. MOSBY.
MAJ.-GEN. J. E. B. STUART.
FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE, Jan. 27, 1863.
SIR:--Last night my pickets were driven in by some of Stuart's
cavalry, wounding one and capturing nine. I then started with some
two hundred men in pursuit.
Some twenty-seven miles beyond my pickets at Middleburg, I came up
with them, and after a short skirmish, captured twenty-four of
them. I have just returned.
P. WYNDHAM.
CAPT. CARROLL H. PORTER,
_Assistant Adjutant-General_