University of Virginia Library

XXXVII.
NO QUARTER.

That rush across the fields, leaping rocks, ravines,
fences, was a superb spectacle, and the memory
of it still stirs my blood.

We swept by to the left of the Old Chapel,
crossed a meadow, mounted the Chapeldale hill, and
were in front of the burning mansion, from whose
windows spouted smoke and flame.

Above, a great black cloud, like the smoke rising
from a gigantic torch, hovered, assumed fantastic
outlines, and slowly drifted away, darkening the
calm September landscape, and disappearing upon
the horizon.

Landon had rushed up the hill in front of his
men. His eyes blazed. I saw that the tiger was
aroused in him.

“Look!” he said, with a whirl of his sabre, as
he turned in his saddle and pointed to the house.
“Women, children, and the sick are their victims,
— and they are yonder!”

With a quick gesture he indicated a detachment
of blue horsemen ascending a hill toward Berryville.

“No quarter!” he shouted. “Follow me! —
and no quarter to-day!”

As he spoke, Landon darted on the track of the
Federal cavalry. The rangers followed him headlong.
From their ranks rose a wild and furious cry,
— “No quarter!”

What followed seems to-day, as I go back in
memory, like some terrible phantasmagoria, — some
nightmare of blood and death rather than an actual
occurrence.

On that morning of September, I saw Partisan
warfare, in its darkest and most frightful phase.

Landon's fierce rush carried him over the distance
which separated him from the Federal cavalry in an
incredibly brief space of time. Nothing made him
pause for an instant. Riding, drawn sabre in hand,
twenty yards ahead of his men, the Partisan cleared
every obstacle, drove on with bloody spurs, and
then I saw him, — for I had not been able to keep up
with his headlong rush, — I saw him disappear in
the midst of the enemy, cutting right and left with
the sabre.

The Rangers followed: every man selected his
adversary, — for the Federal detachment numbered
scarcely more than thirty men, — and in a few
minutes the blue horsemen were scattered in wild
flight.

But the flight did not avail them. On their track

followed Landon and his sabreurs, cutting them out
of the saddle, or pistolling them, man by man.

A dozen times I heard the cry “I surrender!”
and saw hands thrown up, arms dropped. Each
time came the terrible response: —

“No quarter!”

And the men who had surrendered, like those
who still fought, were shot, sabred, or hurled from
the saddle, and trampled under foot. If they rose,
a pistol bullet was sent through them, or they were
ridden down, and mercilessly put to death at the
point of the sword.[1]

Of the whole command, a few only escaped;
among whom, as I afterwards discovered, was Ratcliffe.
The speed of his horse had alone saved him.

A mile from the Chapel toward Berryville, the
affair had come to an end. The road was strewed
with dead men and horses. Not a wounded man
was seen. They had all been pistolled.

Landon wiped his bloody sabre on his horse's
mane.

“So much for the house-burners!” he said,
coolly; “I think I have done for them!”