Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/312

 304 Southern Historical Society Papers.

with a star in his forehead, the swiftest animal I have ever mounted, and despite his strength and speed, as docile as a lamb. The horse had an exceedingly sore back, when he came into my possession, and up to this time I knew nothing of the former history of the horse, and how fond I was of riding him no pen now can tell. An older brother of mine, who held a commission as captain under Colonel Jackson, and I, started alone on this expedition. The evening of the first day we crossed the Alleghany Mountain into Highland county, and just at the foot of the mountain we overtook the Twenty-sec- ond regiment, resting in the roadside, and so soon as I began to ride by the regiment, I heard one soldier call: "Colonel Barbee yonder is your horse." Whereupon the whole regiment began to clamor, "Yonder is Billie," (the name of the horse). Colonel Barbee, who was the lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, rode to my side, and seeing that I was much perturbed, introduced himself to me, and in a very pleasant way gave me a short history of the horse.

He had been bred in Kentucky, and the Colonel had ridden him a year, but, on account of his weight, he had ruined his back and rendered the horse unfit for service. Colonel Barbee had sold him to Captain Bob Moorman, of Greenbrier county, and the latter had sold him to my father. In the meantime, the soldiers had gathered around him until he was completely hemm- ed in on all sides, and there I sat, a bashful seventeen-year-old boy, not enjoying in the least notoriety that Billie had given me. The Twenty-second Regiment that day had fully nine hun- dred men, and Virginia had no troops in the field that made a bet- ter record than that splendid regiment of men, and the writer can still recall distinctly the faces of many of those noble young men, as they looked to him on that April evening, now more than forty-two years ago.

MET AT HIGHTOWN.

The morning of the second day after this occurrence the troops all met at Hightown, a point on the old Staunton and Park- ersburg Road six miles west of Monterey, and from the turn- pike road at Hightown, two large and beautiful limestone springs can be seen one North, the other south of the road; one the