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,

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.