d the contingent from Rockbridge County was encamped
a few miles in rear of us. I got permission from our captain to go to
see them and hear the news from home. Among them were several merchants
of Lexington, and steady old farmers from the county. They were much
impressed with the accounts of the battle and spoke very solemnly of
war. I had ridden Sergeant Baxter McCorkle's horse, and, on my return,
soon after passing through Mt. Jackson, overtook Bedinger and Charley
Boteler, with a canteen of French brandy which a surgeon-friend in town
had given them. As a return for a drink, I asked Bedinger to ride a
piece on my horse, which, for some time, he declined to do, but finally
said, "All right; get down." He had scarcely gotten into the saddle
before he plied the horse with hat and heels, and away he went down the
road at full speed and disappeared in the distance.

This was more kindness than I had intended, but it afforded a good
laugh. Boteler and the brandy followed the horseman, and I turned in and
spent the night with the College company, quartered close by as a guard
to General Jackson's headquarters. I got back to camp the next
afternoon, Sunday. McCorkle had just found his horse, still saddled and
bridled, grazing in a wheat-field.

From Camp Buchanan we fell back to Rude's Hill, four miles above Mt.
Jackson and overlooking the Shenandoah River. About once in three days
our two Parrott guns, to one of which I belonged, were sent down to
General Ashby, some ten miles, for picket service to supply the place of
Chew's battery, which exhausted its ammunition in daily skirmishes with
the enemy. Ashby himself was always there; and an agreeable,
unpretending gentleman he was. His complexion was very dark and his hair
and beard as black as a raven. He was always in motion, mounted on one
of his three superb stallions, one of which was coal-black, another a
chestnut sorrel, and the third white. On our first trip we had a lively
cannonade, and the white horse in our team, still bearing the stains of
blood from the Kernstown carnage, reared and plunged furiously during
the firing. The Federal skirmish line was about a mile off, near the
edge of some woods, and at that distance looked very harmless; but when
I looked at them through General Ashby's field-glass it made them look
so large, and brought them so close, that it startled me. There was a
fence between, and, on giving the glass a slight jar, I imagined they
jumped