Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/115

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The circumstances attending the wounding and death of the "Flower of Cavaliers" (General J. E. B. Stuart) ought to be put in permanent form for the use of the future historian, for no history of the Army of Northern Virginia would be complete which did not give large space to the chivalric deeds of this great soldier.

Among our most precious memories of those stirring times are those which cluster around the person and character of Stuart. We remember him as he led an infantry charge on the outpost in the autumn of 1861—as he appeared at his headquarters on his red blanket on Munson's hill, with a kindly word and a cordial grasp for even the private soldier—as all through the campaigns which followed he appeared at the head of his column or in the heat of battle always gay, quick and daring—and especially do we love to recall him amid the sweets of social intercourse or sitting a deeply interested listener in the meetings of our Chaplains' Association at Orange Courthouse. We were present when he took leave of his devoted wife at the opening of the campaign of 1864, saw him several times amid those bloody scenes in the Wilderness, and wept with the whole army when the sad news came that the great cavalryman had fallen—that the "Chevalier Bayard" of the Confederacy had yielded up his noble life in defending our capital from imminent danger.

We would be glad to have from some competent hand a sketch of that last campaign of Stuart's, and a detailed account of the circumstances immediately connected with his fall. Meantime we give below the very interesting account of his last moments, which appeared at the time of his death in the Richmond Examiner: