UNION CAMP SCENE.** A QUIET GAME. FROM A WAR-TIME’SKETCH.
A BIT OF PARTISAN SERVICE.
B efore the first battle of Bull Run I had en-listed as a private in a company of Confed-erate cavalry of which William E. .Tones, a WestPoint officer, was the captain, and that had beenassigned to the 1st Virginia regiment of cav-alry, commanded by Colonel J. E. B. Stuart. Wejoined Stuart at Bunker Hill, a small village onthe pike leading from Winchester, where GeneralJohnston had his headquarters, to Martinsburg,where Patterson with his army was lying. Stuartwas watching Patterson. In a few days Pattersonadvanced and took possession of our camp, andour regiment retired toward Winchester. HereI took my first lessons in war. Patterson hadno cavalry except a battalion of regulars, andwe had no artillery; so he contented himselfwith throwing an occasional shell at us, and wegot out of the way of them as fast as we could.One day we were lying down in a large open fieldholding our horses when a battery suddenly ap-peared upon a hill about a mile off and opened onus. I saw a shell burst within a few yards ofCaptain .Tones, who coolly ordered us to mountand fall into line. I do not think I was so muchfrightened at any time after that. Stuart sent onecompany of cavalry down toward Charlestown toobserve Patterson, and with the remainder of hisregiment started for Manassas and took part in thatbattle. I served also with Stuart on the Peninsula and in the Antietam campaign.
When the year 1863 arrived Fredericksburg hadbeen fought, and the two armies, in winter quarters,were confronting each other on the Rappahannock.Both sides sought rest; the pickets on the oppositebanks of the river had ceased firing and gone toswapping coffee and tobacco. The cavalry hadbeen sent to the rear to forage. But “ quiet to quick
bosoms is a lioll.” I did not want to rust away mylife in camp, so I asked Stuart to give me a detailof men to go over to Loudoun County , where Ithought I could make things lively during the win-ter months. Always full of enterprise, Stuartreadily assented, and I started off on my career asa partisan. At the time I had no idea of organiz-ing an independent command, but expected toreturn to Stuart when the campaign opened in thespring. I was indifferent to rank, and would havebeen as contontod to be a lieutenant as a colonel-I was somewhat familiar with the country whereI began operations, having picketed there the yea*before. The lines of the troops attached to thedefenses of Washington extended from aboutOccoquan, on the lower Potomac, through Centre-ville, in Fairfax County , to the Falls of the upp e1 'Potomac, and thence as far west as Harper’s Ferry-This was a long lino to defend, and before I wentthere had not been closely guarded. I began onthe picket-lines; my attacks wero generally in thenight-time, and usually the surprise compensatedfor the disparity in numbers. They would be re-peated the next, and often during the same nigk*at a different point, and this created a vastly ex-aggerated idea of my force. Some conception maybo formed of the alarm it produced from a factstated by General Hooker, that in the spring1.863 tho planks on Chain Bridge wero taken upevery night to keep mo out of Washington.that time I could not muster over twenty men. &■small force moving with celerity and threateningmany points on a line can neutralize a hundredtimes its own number. The line must be stronger atevery point than the attacking force, else it 19broken. At that time Hooker asked that the cav-alry division belonging to the defenses of Wash-
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