Mohun | Page 4

right hand, and when he made a request, the War Office deigned to listen. Four days afterward, I was seated under the canvas of a staff tent, when Stuart hastened up with boyish ardor, holding a paper.
"Here you are, old Surry,"--when he used the prefix "old" to any one's name, he was always excellently well disposed toward them,--"the Richmond people are prompt this time. Here is your assignment--send for Sweeney and his banjo! He shall play 'Jine the Cavalry!' in honor of the occasion, Surry!"
You see now, my dear reader, how it happened that in June, 1863, Stuart beckoned to me, and gave me an order to transmit to General Mordaunt.

III.
BLUE AND GRAY PHANTOMS.
As I rode toward the Rappahannock to deliver Stuart's order to General Mordaunt, the wide landscape was suddenly lit up by a crimson glare. I looked over my shoulder. The sun was poised upon the western woods, and resembled a huge bloodshot eye. Above it extended a long black cloud, like an eyebrow--and from the cloud issued low thunder.
When a storm is coming, the civilian seeks shelter; but the soldier carrying an order, wraps his cape around him, and rides on. I went on past Brandy and Fleetwood Hill, descended toward the river, entered a great belt of woods--then night and storm descended simultaneously. An artillery duel seemed going on in the clouds; the flickering lightnings amid the branches resembled serpents of fire: the wind rolled through the black wood, tearing off boughs in its passage.
I pushed my horse to full speed to emerge from this scene of crashing limbs and tottering trunks. I had just passed a little stream, when from a by-road on my left came the trample of hoofs. It is good to be on the watch in the cavalry, and I wheeled to the right, listening--when all at once a brilliant flash of lightning showed me, within fifty paces, a column of blue cavalry.
"Halt!" rang out from the column, and a pistol-shot followed.
I did not halt. Capture was becoming a hideous affair in June, 1863. I passed across the head of the column at full speed, followed by bullets; struck into a bridle-path on the right, and pushed ahead, hotly pursued.
They had followed me nearly half a mile, firing on me, and ordering me to halt, when suddenly a sonorous "Halt!" resounded fifty yards in front of me; and a moment afterward, a carbine ball passed through my riding cape.
I drove on at full speed, convinced that these in front were friends; and the chest of my horse struck violently against that of another in the darkness.
"Halt, or you are dead!" came in the same commanding voice.
Another flash of lightning showed me a squadron of gray cavalry: at their head rode a cavalier, well mounted; it was his horse against which I had struck, and he held a cocked pistol to my breast.
The lightning left nothing in doubt. Gray and blue quickly recognized each other. The blue cavalry had drawn rein, and, at that moment, the leader of the grays shouted--"Charge!" A rush of hoofs, and then a quick clash of sabres followed. The adversaries had hurled together. The wood suddenly became the scene of a violent combat.
It was a rough affair. For ten minutes the result was doubtful. The Federal cavalry were apparently commanded by an officer of excellent nerve, and he fought his men obstinately. For nearly a quarter of an hour the wood was full of sabre-strokes, carbine-shots, and yells, which mingled with the roll of the storm. Then the fight ended.
My friend of the cocked pistol threw himself, sabre in hand, upon the Federal front, and it shook, and gave back, and retreated. The weight of the onset seemed to sweep it, inch by inch, away. The blue squadron finally broke, and scattered in every direction. The grays pressed on with loud cheers, firing as they did so:--five minutes afterward, the storm-lashed wood had swallowed pursuers and pursued.
The whole had disappeared like phantom horsemen in the direction of the Rappahannock.

IV.
MOHUN AND HIS PRISONER.
Half an hour afterward, the storm had spent its fury, and I was standing by a bivouac fire on the banks of the Rappahannock, conversing with the officer against whom I had driven my horse in the darkness.
Mounted upon a powerful gray, he had led the attack with a sort of fury, and I now looked at him with some curiosity.
He was a man of about thirty, of gaunt face and figure, wearing a hat with a black feather, and the uniform of a colonel of cavalry. The features were regular and might have been called handsome; the eyes, hair, mustache, and imperial--he wore no beard--coal black; the complexion so pale that the effect was startling. More curious than all else, however, was the officer's expression. In