Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/203

Rh a graduate of West Point, served for several years in the Mounted Rifles, and is skillful, brave and zealous in a very high degree. It is enough to say that he is worthy to succeed J. E. B. Stuart. For the lieutenant-colonelcy I repeat my recommendation of Capt. Fitzhugh Lee. He belongs to a family in which military genius seems to be an heirloom. He is an officer of rare merit, capacity and courage. Both of these officers have the invaluable advantage at this moment of knowledge of the ground which is now the scene of operations.

Stuart soon became brigadier-general of cavalry, later major-general, and then lieutenant-general, and the famous commander of the cavalry corps of the army of Northern Virginia until he fell in action. Fitz Lee soon became colonel, then brigadier-general, and finally the distinguished leader, as major-general, of a cavalry division in the same army, and in 1898 a famous consul-general of the United States and a major-general in its army in the Cuban war. Jones became colonel, later brigadier-general of cavalry, and fell on the battlefield.

General Longstreet, who was in command of the "advanced Confederate forces," reported that he had arranged to move a heavy force during the night to cut off the enemy at Lewinsville, but Stuart did not receive his instructions, and himself "drove the enemy back to his trenches at once." He added:

Captain Rosser became the colonel of the Fifth Virginia cavalry, a brigadier in Fitz Lee's division of cavalry of the army of Northern Virginia, and a major-general in command of a cavalry division in the same army; Major Terrill became colonel of the Thirteenth Virginia infantry; Captain Patrick became major of the Seventeenth battalion of Virginia cavalry and fell, in the brave discharge of duty, in the second battle of Manassas.

On the 15th of September a Confederate force of cavalry and artillery scouted the south bank of the Potomac from Harper's Ferry up to the mouth of the Antietam, and had skirmishing at various points during the day with Col. J. W. Geary's Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania