Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/180

 Son i In- rn Historical Society Papers.

and picketed from the Valley 'pike to the Berry ville 'pike, running rust from Winchester, General Robert D. Johnston, of North Caro- lina, had a brigade of 800 to 1,000 muskets on the Berryville 'pike, on the top of the ridge running across the road. My pickets were a mile in advance of his, in Ashe Hollow. Sheridan, with 45,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, lay eight to fifteen miles beyond our picket lines, from Berry ville and Ripon to Charlestown and Halltown, in Clarke and Jefferson counties, Va. Now, every morning the Yankee cavalry would rush my pickets in on Johnston's posts. He would stop them until I got up, and then I'd drive the Yankees back and re-establish my original picket posts. This done, I would send my command back to camp.

I had about 800 mounted men, and I'd ride up to Bob Johnston's headquarters, which was a wagon under a tree, one camp stool, and a frying pan sizzing with bacon, and a pot of rye coffee and sorghum. I'd get my breakfast. But after a week of this proceeding, it either became monotonous or my appetite showed no signs of weakening, I don't know which. One morning I dismounted after my usual morning call to boots and saddle, and swung myself very comfortably into Johnston's single and only camp stool. I smelled the bacon and sniffed the coffee and waited. In a few moments the cook handed me a chip for a plate and a tin cup of red-hot coffee so hot you had to set the cup on the grass, and Bob spoke up.

Says he: " Bradley, you let those Yankees do you too bad. You have got so scared of them that you all run the very first dash they make at you."

" Is that so, Robert? " said I. " That's a pity; but I don't know how to help it. I do the best I can. How many Yankee cavalry do you think you are good for? "

" Well," said he, "I've got 800 muskets present for duty. By a week's time, as the boys get back from the hospital, I'll have 1,000. Well, with i, 006 muskets, I think I can take care of 5,000 Yanks on horseback."

" All right," said I, " wait and see. I hope you can." So I got my breakfast and went off, mightily tickled at the conceit of the Tarheel, for Sheridan's cavalry, with Custer, Torbett and Devens, were about as good soldiers as ever took horse or drew sabre. We had drilled them so that in three years we had taught them to ride. They were always drilling enough to fight, and they learned the use of the sabre from necessity.