Part 76 (2/2)

War grim, gaunt, stark, hideous--as remorseless as death.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

In a foliage-embowered house on a hill near Was.h.i.+ngton Colonel Jeb Stuart, Commander of the Confederate Cavalry, had made his headquarters.

Neighing horses were hitched to the swaying limbs. They pawed the ground, wheeled and whinnied their impatience at inaction. Every man who sat in one of those saddles owned his mount. These boys were the flower of Southern manhood. The Confederate Government was too poor to furnish horses for the Cavalry. Every man, volunteering for this branch of the service, must bring his own horse and equipment complete. The South only furnished a revolver and carbine. At the first battle of Bull Run they didn't have enough of them even for the regiments Stuart commanded.

Whole companies were armed only with the pikes which John Brown had made for the swarming of the Black Bees at Harper's Ferry. They used these pikes as lances.

The thing that gave the Confederate Cavalry its impetuous dash, its fire and efficiency was the fact that every man on horseback had been born in the saddle and had known his horse from a colt. From the moment they swung into line they were veterans.

The North had no such riders in the field as yet. Brigadier-General Phillip St. George Cooke was organizing this branch of the service. It would take weary months to train new riders and break in strange horses.

Until these born riders, mounted on their favorites, could be killed or their horses shot from under them, there would be tough work ahead for the Union Cavalry.

A farmer approached at sunset. He gazed on the array with pride.

He lifted his gray head and shouted:

”Hurrah for our boys! Old Virginia'll show 'em before we're through with this!”

A sentinel saluted the old man.

”I've come for Colonel Stuart. His wife and babies are at my house.

He'll understand. Tell him.”

The farmer watched the spectacle. Straight in front of the little portico on its tall staff fluttered the Commander's new, blood-red battle flag with its blue St. Andrew's cross and white stars rippling in the wind. Spurs were clanking, sabers rattling. A courier dashed up, dismounted and entered the house. Young officers in their new uniforms were laughing and chatting in groups before the door.

An escort brought in a Federal Cavalry prisoner on his mount. The boys gathered around him and roared with laughter. He was a good-natured Irishman who could take a joke. His horse was loaded down with a hundred pounds of extra equipment. The Irishman had half of it strapped on his own back.

A boy shouted:

”For the Lord's sake, did you take him with all that freight?”

An escort roared:

”That's why we took him. He couldn't run.”

The boy looked at the solemn face of the prisoner and chaffed:

”And why have ye got that load on your own back, man?”

Without cracking a smile the Irishman replied:

”An' I thought me old horse had all he could carry!”

The boys roared, pulled him down, took off his trappings and told him to make himself at home.

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