University of Virginia Library

I.
IN “MOSBY'S CONFEDERACY.”

In the first days of autumn, 1864, I left Petersburg,
where Lee confronted Grant, to go on a tour
of duty to the Shenandoah Valley, where Early confronted
Sheridan.

This journey was made on horseback, and I encountered
upon the way some curious incidents and
remarkable personages.

Incidents and personages suited the epoch; for,
strangest of the strange, was that autumn of 1864!
Do you remember it, reader? For my part, I shall
never forget it. On all sides, doubt, anxiety, suffering,
— a sombre defiance mingled with despair. From
every quarter, — North, South, East, and West, —
the clash of arms; by day and by night, on the
four winds, the roar of cannon; in the trenches by
the Appomattox, the incessant rattle of skirmishers;
in the fields and forests of the border, the crack of
pistols and carbines. The war mortal, — breast to

breast, hilt to hilt. The country desolate; the fields
untilled; the women in black, weeping for dead husbands;
the children in rags, calling for dead fathers!

In that lugubrious autumn of the dark year '64,
the Southern Enceladus was prostrate, and vainly
writhed beneath the mountains piled upon him.
Lee's keen and trenchant rapier was worn to the hilt
nearly; and the red flag, so long borne aloft on its
point, was about to fall, and be dragged in the dust
of defeat; but never, Heaven be thanked, in the mire
of dishonour!

It was at this tragic epoch that I set out on my
horseback journey through Virginia.

Crossing the Rapidan at Raccoon Ford, above
Chancellorsville, and the Rappahannock near the
little village of Orleans, I pushed on through
Fauquier, gazing with curious interest on the
deserted country around me. It was a very different
region from the lowland which I had just left, and
war was evidently carried on here in a very different
fashion. At Petersburg, two great armies faced
each other behind breast-works, — sullen, watchful,
resembling lions about to spring; and these lions
were fed by railroads and long trains of wagons,
going and coming from every quarter. Here, in
Fauquier, at the foot of the mountains, there were
no armies, no railroads, no wagons, and, it seemed,
no troops of any description whatever. “Mosby's

Confederacy,” as the people called the region, was
apparently uninhabited. I went on, mile after mile,
without encountering a human being. The roads
were deserted. Stray cattle wandered wild on the
slopes of the great hills. The partridge, long unmolested,
and free from all apprehension, perched on
the fence beside me as I passed along, perfectly
tranquil, within a few feet of my pistol's muzzle.

This physiognomy of the landscape, however, did
not deceive me. I knew very well that it was only
the chance of travel which enabled me thus to pass
unchallenged; for this country which I was traversing
— like the banks of the Shenandoah — was
notoriously a “Debatable Land,” — the home of
the scout and the ranger. On these deserted roads
took place those incessant combats of Mosby and his
men with the Federal cavalry. These forests were
the scenes of those ambuscades, surprises, sudden
collisions, in which sabres clashed, pistols and carbines
rang, and yells rose, mingling with the din of
hoofs, as the blue and gray rangers came together.
Not a week passed here but the autumn leaves were
dyed still redder with the blood of human beings.

Such were the scenes and figures which peopled
my imagination as I rode on through the forests of
Fauquier. Under the tranquil beauty there was
something sombre and menacing. I had heard, of
this land, a hundred bloody histories, — the strangest

tales of private feuds and secret vengeances. Here,
on the war-harried Virginia border, men had appeared
mysteriously, coming, none knew whence;
had joined the Partisans under names which were
clearly assumed; had fought with deadly rancour;
fallen unnoted, and disappeared as the autumn leaf
flits away on the wind, swallowed up with their
mystery in oblivion. Men hated each other bitterly
everywhere, in 1864; but north of the Rappahannock,
and along the banks of the Shenandoah, there
seemed to be something terrible and bloody in the
very atmosphere, which inflamed the heart, and
drove to mad excesses all who breathed it.

Such was the Border during the last months of
the war; and it is a page from the unpublished history
of this strange “place and time” — the banks
of the Shenandoah between Winchester and the Blue
Ridge, in 1864 — that I beg leave to lay before the
reader.

After a day and night at “The Oaks,” the residence
of my friend, Colonel Beverley, near Markham,
I resumed my journey; and, following the
mountain road through a gorge of the Blue Ridge,
reached about sunset the small village of Paris.

Paris lies, like a hawk's nest, in that gash of the
mountain called Ashby's Gap. At that time it
might have been compared with more fitness to a
sentinel posted to watch the gorge and give the

alarm on the approach of an enemy. That enemy
frequently made his appearance. Sheridan lay on
the Opequon, watching his daring opponent, Early;
and scouting parties of Federal cavalry passed and
repassed, almost daily, through the gap, on the lookout
for Confederates. Like the whole country, Paris
appeared poverty-stricken and melancholy. The
houses were nearly deserted; the fences had been
pulled down; the sign-board of the old tavern was
hanging by one corner; the tavern itself was dismantled;
grass grew in the streets of the hamlet,
and scarce a cur yelped. There is a picture “in
little” of a Virginia village in 1864.

In front of the rickety tavern some horses were
standing bridled and saddled. On the low fence
were sitting several officers and men in gray.
Among these I recognized Colonel F—, of General
Longstreet's staff, who got down and came to
meet me. We exchanged a cordial greeting. I gave
him the news from Petersburg, and then asked him
in turn for intelligence from the Valley.

“Nothing,” was his reply. “Early is still at
Winchester, and Sheridan on the Opequon, — afraid
to attack.”

“How is the country around Millwood, on the
other side of the gap?”

“Full of Yankees, with a heavy picket at
Berry's Ferry.”

This was discouraging, as I wished to go on to the
house of a friend near White Post, that evening.
To retrace my steps, and enter the Valley by Manassas
Gap, seemed absurd.

“I think I'll try and get over somewhere,” I
said.

“Get over — to-night?” exclaimed the colonel.

“Yes.”

“You'll certainly be captured.”

“I will risk it.”

“Well, good luck to you, my dear fellow. Shake
hands: I always like to take affectionate leave of a
friend who is about to `go up.”'

We exchanged a grasp of the hand amid general
laughter from the crowd, and my friend went back
to his perch on the fence. I turned my horse's
head up the mountain.

I had not gone twenty steps when I heard the
colonel call after me.

“I say, Surry!”

I turned my head.

“Give my love to any friends of mine you meet
in Washington!”[1]

It was with this most cheerful of “last greetings”
still ringing in my ears that I went on up the
mountain.