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250 nature. He sleeps quietly in Hollywood. No monumental shaft or statue of bronze calls the attention of those who frequent our public squares to Virginia's loss when Stuart fell. But his men—those who, on the long, weary march, or in thickest conflict, gladly followed where he led the way; those who, sleeping without shelter, often in rain, ice and snow, rose at his bugle blast, and, though chilled with cold and pinched by hunger, rushed headlong upon the half awakened and confounded divisions of Federal infantry—knew and loved him. His fame is safe in their keeping. He has been blamed for Gettysburg, and yet, with the approval of the Commanding-General, he had gone on an expedition almost unparalleled for the endurance of himself and his command. They crossed the Potomac, marched nearly three days and nights without stopping, except for an hour or so to feed. They destroyed wagon trains of valuable army stores. Nearly a thousand horses and mules and about two hundred wagons were taken. He scattered several considerable bodies of the enemy's troops, and but for erroneous information, which brought him nearly in collision with a superior force, when his men and horses were nearly worn out for want of rest, compelling him to make a considerable detour, he would have reached our army before the battle on the day preceding the great struggle at Gettysburg.

Our cavalry was always made the scapegoat for the disasters that occurred, yet the official statements will show that they render most signal service to the army and the country; and that from the constant wear and tear of being always in the saddle, and, the greater part of the time, skirmishing or engaged in more serious conflicts, their losses aggregated fully as much as the other arms of the service.

But returning to the immediate subject of this article, the reader must bear in mind that General Stuart, at Culpeper Courthouse, was picketing the Rappahannock river, from its confluence with the Rapidan up to near its source in the mountains; that his two small brigades of cavalry, and his horse artillery, were expected to guard the entire line from the Blue Ridge to Chancellorsville. Company "G," Third regiment, to which I then belonged, had on its rolls between seventy-five and eighty men, yet on the 17th March, 1863, but thirty men could be turned out fit for duty, and with that force the company went into action at Kelly's ford. The regiment had two hundred and forty officers and men in line that day, lost three killed and nearly forty wounded, and lost