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gone to sleep, and during the 8th of October there was a stir about head-quarters which indicated that active service was in the wind. On the evening of that day the officers enjoyed themselves highly at the Bower," the entertainment ending with a serenade in which the banjo and fiddle took chief part, while not a note of war broke in on their pleasure.

On the morning of the 9th there was a decided change. The sound of the bugle broke cheerily on the morning air and the roads were soon filled with troopers, eighteen hundred of them, picked men all, the best mounted and most trustworthy in the corps. They had been called out for a work that would demand alertness, activity, and daring, and only the best men in the squadrons were wanted.

A battery of four guns accompanied the expedition, which set out in high spirit, its purpose kept secret, but the men feeling that when “Jeb" Stuart led lively times were to be looked for. Darkness had fallen when they reached the Potomac and here they bivouacked for the night, crossing early the next morning. A fog covered the valley as they rode forward, finding no foes, and crossing the narrow width of Maryland and entering Pennsylvania without a shot being fired.

Nothing was disturbed in Maryland, but horses were seized on both sides of the line of march in Pennsylvania, and on the evening of the 10th the bold raiders rode into Chambersburg, the goal of the expedition, without an enemy being seen. That night was spent in the town, and the next morning they set out at dawn on the road towards Gettysburg, after gathering what spoil they could easily carry, paroling the sick soldiers in the hospital, and setting fire to the ordnance store

house, well filled with military supplies, the railway buildings, and several trains of loaded cars.

So far all had gone well, but the troopers had a day of imminent peril before them. Rain had succeeded the fair weather and was now falling heavily, threatening to make the Potomac impassable, and though they had met no foes in their advance, they knew that many would await them in their retreat. The alarm had spread far and wide, the telegraph had called the Federal cavalry out in all directions, and the daring eighteen hundred would need to ride fast and furious on their way back to Virginia.

Yet fortune favored them. General Pleasanton was patrolling the roads to cut them off, but was led astray by false information, and when he halted for fresh. orders, after a fifty miles' ride, Stuart passed by unseen within four miles. Yet as the raiders approached the Potomac the peril rapidly increased. Midnight brought Pleasanton word of their movements and he was quickly on their trail, while infantry and cavalry came closing in from other quarters. Stuart reached Hyattstown, in the vicinity of the Potomac, at daybreak on the 12th, after marching sixty-five miles in twenty hours.

Turning abruptly to the west, the raiders rode through a large piece of woodland that concealed their movements. The nearest available crossing was White's Ford, and for this they rode at full speed. As they approached they were disconcerted to see a large body of infantry in position on a steep bluff very near the ford. If these could not be driven away all was lost. There was but one thing to do, to put a bold face on the matter. Colonel W. H. F. Lee, who commanded the advance, called on the infantry officer

to surrender, saying that Stuart's whole force was before him and that resistance was useless. After a short wait for a reply, he opened on them with his guns and to his surprise and relief the infantry abandoned their position and retreated.

A loud Confederate cheer followed them. No shot was fired to hinder their march. On to the ford rode the weary troopers and passed over without opposition, though their foes were closing in upon them from all sides, and in a few minutes more their rear guard would have been cut off. Within twenty-seven hours Stuart had ridden eighty miles, from Chambersburg to White's Ford, and crossed with his artillery and captured horses, his only loss being one man wounded and two stragglers captured. The value of the property destroyed was estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and twelve hundred horses were carried off, though many of their own had to be abandoned. Thus ended Stuart's most famous raid.

Stuart was kept busy in the subsequent movements of the army and rendered good service at Chancellorsville, his cavalry covering Stonewall Jackson's flank movement. When Jackson fell wounded the command of his corps fell for the time upon Stuart, who extricated it from the critical position it had reached in the darkness and renewed the attack the next day.

During the succeeding Gettysburg campaign he had an opportunity to invade Pennsylvania again, this time under very different auspices. During the northward march he guarded the flanks of Lee's columns and had several sharp brushes with the Federal cavalry. On the passage of the Potomac he obtained Lee's permission to repeat his favorite movement of riding round the enemy's rear, and accordingly crossed the

river between the Union army and Washington, riding up into Pennsylvania to the west of Meade's army. It proved an ill-advised movement. Stuart was forced to make a wide detour and did not reach the battlefield at Gettysburg until the evening of the second day's fight. Thus Lee was deprived of his cavalry at an important crisis in his career and lost all the advantage which he might have obtained from Stuart's presence. All the latter was able to do was to take part in the closing struggle and to cover the rear of Lee's retreating army.

In the months that followed Stuart had many encounters with the Federal cavalry, the most striking being during Lee's movement towards Washington in October, when in one of his movements he found himself hemmed in between two Federal corps and in a very perilous position. His first impulse was to abandon his guns and wagons and attempt a speedy flight under cover of the darkness, but he finally decided upon another plan.

Hiding his men in one of those dense thickets of small pine saplings which cover old fields in Virginia, he sent out three men dressed in Federal uniforms, who, by mingling with the Union columns, managed to escape and reach Lee, whom they told of Stuart's plight. Help was at once sent, and under cover of the confusion caused by a cannonade of the Union lines the bold cavalry leader managed to break through and escape.

Stuart met his Waterloo in 1864, when he first encountered Sheridan, the most famous cavalry leader on the Union side. When Grant emerged from the Wilderness after his desperate fight in its depths, he sent out Sheridan with a large cavalry force to raid in Lee's

rear and cut his communications. Crossing the Po, the Ta, and the North Anna, and destroying miles of railroad and large quantities of stores, he rode on, still destroying and hotly pursued by Stuart, until Yellow Tavern, a few miles north of Richmond, was reached.

Here Stuart, who had swiftly ridden to his front, had concentrated his forces, and at this point the two greatest cavalry leaders of the war met. Sheridan at once attacked and a fiercely contested fight began, in the heat of which the gallant Stuart fell from his horse with a mortal wound. He was taken to Richmond but died the next day, May 12, 1864.

Thus died in harness the most brilliant Confederate cavalry leader of the war, a daring, skilled, and capable soldier, who on horseback was of almost as much service to Lee as Jackson on foot. The two died in battle and the fall of each was a serious loss to the Confederate cause, since men like them it was next to impossible to replace.

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