Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/407



URING the winter of 1862-63 and early spring of 1863, Stuart, by frequent raids across the Rappahannock, kept the Federal cavalry busy, protecting Burnside's right and rear, while in the Valley and in the Appalachian region, Imboden and Jones broke the Federal communications with the west by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad.

In one of his humorous moods, on the 3d of March, Lee wrote to his wife:

After the battle of Fredericksburg, Stuart's cavalry corps held the line of the Rappahannock up to the Blue ridge, with a considerable body in Culpeper, near the line of the Orange & Alexandria railroad, having its base of supplies at Gordonsville. Several times during the winter and early spring the Federal cavalry attacked the Confederates, who invariably drove them back. In an engagement, March 17th, at Kellysville, the first real battle between the horsemen of the opposing armies, the "brave and beloved Pelham, commanding Stuart's horse artillery, was killed.

While tented in his winter quarters back of Fredericksburg, Lee was considering a plan of campaign for the coming spring, having frequent consultations with Jackson and Stuart; and Jackson, in the Corbin lodge at Moss Neck, although busy all the time strengthening his corps and putting it in a high state of efficiency by drill and inspection, and by using every possible effort to