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A BIT OF PARTISAN SERVICE.
vedette, who challenged us, fired, and started intocamp at full speed. We dashed on as close tohis heels as the witches were on Tam O’Shanter’s.The men were asleep in the school-house and theirhorses were tied with halters to the trees. If theyhad staid inside they could easily have driven us
off with their carbines. But every man ran for liishorse, and we were just in time to scatter them.We got all the horses, but most of the men escapedin the darkness. In the charge, Ames rode bymy side. We got off safe with our booty andprisoners. After daybreak, Colonel Wyndhamfollowed at full speed for twenty miles on our
track. All that he did was to go back to campwith a lot of broken down horses. Ames, like thesaints, had been tried by fire; he was neverdoubted afterward. The time had now come forme to take a bolder flight and execute my plan ofmaking a raid on headquarters.
Itwas on the afternoon of March 7th, 18G3, that Istarted from Aldie with 29 men on this expedition.Ames was the only one who knew its object. It waspitch-dark before we got near the cavalry pickets atChantilly. We passed in between them and Centre-ville. Here a good point in the game was won, foronce inside the Union lines wo would be mistakenfortheir own men. By an accident one-half of my com-mand got separated in the dark from the other, andit was nearly an hour before I could find them. Wepassed along close by the camp-fires, but the senti-nels took us for a scouting party of their cavalry. Ihad felt very cold in the early part of the night,but my blood grew warmer as I got farther in thelines, and the chill passed away. I had no reputa-tion to lose by failure but much to gain by suc-cess. I remembered, too, the motto that Ixion inheaven wrote in Minerva’s album—“Adventuresare to the adventurous.” We struck the road lead-ing from Fairfax Court House to the railroad sta-tion and then went on to the village. There were ftfew guards about, but they did not suspect us untilthey saw a pistol pointed at them. Of course theysurrendered. Some refused to believe we wereConfederates after wo told them who we were. Afew sentinels hailed us with the formula, “Whocomes there?” and were answered, “5th NewYork Cavalry.” It was past midnight, and it wasnecessary to do our work quickly if it was to bedone at all. The first thing I did was to detailsquads of men to gather prisoners and horses.I was more anxious to catch Wyndham than anyone else; so I sent Ames, with a detachment, afterhim. But for once fortuno had been propitiousto him. Ho had gone down to Washington thatevening. Ames got two of his staff and his uni-form, and brought thorn to me. One of these offi-cers was Captain Barker, of the 5th New YorkCavalry, who had been Ames’s captain. Amesbrought him to me as a trophy, and seemed to feela malicious pride in introducing him. I had sentanother party to the house where Lieut.-Col. RobertJohnstone, commanding the cavalry brigade, wassleeping. In some manner he had heal'd the alarmand had slipped out through the back way into thegarden in his night-clothes. His wife met my menlike a lioness at the door. I was greatly disap-pointed in not getting Wyndham. The capture ofhis staff-officers and line horses was not an equiva-lent for the loss of the chief. The other details didtheir work rapidly, and soon collected at our rendez-vous in the court-yard a large number of prisonersand fine stoeds. The prisoners seemed to be utterlydumfoundod. About this time Joe Nelson rode upto me with a prisoner who said ho belonged to theguard at General Stoughton’s headquarters, andwith a party of five or six I immediately went there.We dismounted, and with a loud rap on the frontdoor awoke the inmates. An upper window wasraised and some one called out, “Who is there?