Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/150

 142 Southern Historical Society Papers.

[From the Baltimore. Md., Herald, February, 1902.]

BLACK HORSE TROOP.

Some Reminiscences of this Famous Command.

One of the most gallant and picturesque contingents of the Army of Northern Virginia was that famous company of cavalry known as the Black Horse Troop, which won such bright laurels for its daring exploits and the valuable aid it rendered the Confederate commanders in some of the greatest engagements of the Civil war.

In many respects, it was a remarkable body of men, composed as it was of handsome, strapping, debonair Virginians, admirably horsed and equipped, in whose nature the spirit of chivalry was an abiding trait that marked the fight of their banner from the outbreak to the close of the rebellion.

Recruited from the best blood among the young planters and yeomanry of the Piedmont region, as a company they were practi- cally "free lancers;" courage came easy to them, and no braver band of cavaliers ever followed the plumes of Rupert or of Arthur. They wielded their sabres like the cuirassers of old, and used their pistols with the truth and nerve of expert marksmen. So familiar were they with the country in which they operated that they kept the enemy constantly speculating on their movements by checkmat- ing him at every point in the game of war, and achieved such pres- tige by their strange lobiquity and strategem that the name of their little legion among the enemy became a watchword for danger and a signal for action.

The Black Horse was organized at Warrenton in 1859, J ust two years before the war cloud broke over the land, and first figured at Harper's Ferry in the John Brown raid.

Colonel John Scott, of Fauquier, was its first captain, and gave the troop its name. Colonel Scott, who had retired from active life, was for a generation a conspicuous figure in that section of the State as Commonwealth's Attorney, and is known as the author of The Lost Principle and a Life of Mosby.

On the 1 6th of May, i86i,atthe Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, reorganization was affected with requisitions from the Warrenton Rifles and the Powhatan Guards, of Southwestern Virginia.