University of Virginia Library

1. I.
THE BLUE COURIER.

In the summer of 1865, after Lee's surrender, I
paid a visit to my friend, Colonel Beverley, at his
estate of “The Oaks,” in Fauquier.

I hope the worthy reader will not regard the transition
from 1864 to 1865, and from the fierce drama
at the Old Chapel to the quiet scenes of peaceful
days, as too abrupt.

You saw — did you not, my dear reader? — that
the drama ended yonder on that grassy slope near
the willows of the old graveyard; that any further
scenes, when the fifth act had ended, would be superfluous,
and appear stale, flat, and unprofitable? Believe
me, there are few things more “fatal” than a
real drama. Do you wish to stop? — it drags you!
Do you wish to go beyond the limit? — it holds you
back! When Macbeth is dead, the play ends, you
see; and there is very little to interest when Richard
has carried away his hump into oblivion.

So the drama tyrannizes, but there is the friendly
and more obliging Epilogue. Let us parody Sancho
Panza, and say, “Blessed is the man who invented
the Epilogue, — for therein may be collected all the
personages and events which have been dismissed too
unceremoniously in the drama!”

I am going, therefore, worthy reader, to tell you
a little more about our friends the Night-Hawks and
their chief; and, as I have narrated in the preceding
sheets only what I witnessed or heard, I will continue
to do so in these concluding pages.

It was about the middle of April, 1865, then,
when, having traversed the same road from the
Rapidan northward, which I had passed over in
September, 1864, I found myself — a prisoner on
parole, with two horses, and the grand privilege of
remaining unmolested — at “The Oaks!” in the
county of Fauquier.

I am not going to dwell upon the old homestead
and the kind hearts there. Would you know all
about them? You have only to read my Memoirs.
Many scenes of that volume occur at “The Oaks.”
There I first met a young lady, who is looking over
my shoulder now as I write; and it was this face
which I went thither to see after Appomattox Court
House, even before I came hither to “Eagle's Nest”
on the Rappahannock.

Observe how I try to find an excuse to tarry at

“The Oaks!” 'Tis a charming place, and the sun
seems to shine brighter there than elsewhere in the
world. But I must come back to the personages
who have played parts in this fierce episode of my
Memoirs.

My acquaintance with Landon — did you fancy
him dead of his wound, reader? — was renewed in a
manner the most simple.

One morning a courier, dressed in blue, came to
“The Oaks,” with a note from the Federal officer commanding
just over the ridge. Would I oblige him
by repairing on the next morning, if convenient, to
Millwood? He was anxious to obtain from me, as
an officer from General Lee's head-quarters, details
relating to the precise manner in which General
Grant had paroled the Confederate forces; the work
in hand being to parole the Partisans of the Shenandoah.

My blue friend — how familiar and like “old
times” already, he looked! — was exceedingly deferential,
and waited, with his hand to his cap, for a
reply. I wrote it; he saluted and disappeared. On
the next morning I mounted my horse and set out
for Ashby's Gap.

This time there were no Confederates on the fence
of the old tavern at Paris — no videttes at the ford
of the Shenandoah — no Night-Hawks or blue people
on picket anywhere.

But a mile further I saw them; and in the streets
of Millwood were my old friends of the night, mingling
with Federal cavalrymen in charming fellowship.
They were laughing, joking, and jesting at
each other; and at the head of the Night-Hawks was
Landon.