Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/183

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Meanwhile I received instructions to proceed to Louisa Courthouse and establish a line of couriers from that place to Charlottesville, which I mention as an additional illustration of Jackson's foresight and sagacity in providing for possible contingencies. Although at first I saw no occasion for couriers between the two points in question where we had telegraph stations, the necessity for them became abundantly apparent when I learned a few hours after the line was established, that it had been surreptitiously cut by some secret enemy and no further reliance could be placed on them for the transmission of orders and intelligence.

Leaving Louisa Courthouse on horseback Wednesday morning June 25, I next morning reached Ashland, where I found Governor Letcher and a substantial dinner, which was all the more enjoyable from my not having had anything to eat since the previous noon. While taking a post-prandial smoke at Ashland two tired looking youths came up to me from across the fields on foot, the foremost of whom introduced himself as Mr. Carroll, of Baltimore, and presented his friend, Lord St. Muir, of England. They had run the blockade to see something of the war on our side, with which they heartily sympathized. I introduced them to the Governor, who, that afternoon, took them as his guests to Richmond, where, during the following week, they had ample opportunities to gratify their curiosity, for his lordship told me afterwards he had witnessed some of the Seven Days' Battles. "Then you saw some hot fighting?" said I. "Yes," he replied; "it was rather warmish!" The same evening, Thursday, June 26th, I rejoined General Jackson near Hundley's Corner, where we laid on our arms that night, vainly trying to sleep amid the angry mutterings of the coming storm of battle, which next day burst upon us and raged with such unexampled violence for seven successive days around the city of Richmond.