Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/83

 any cavalry to investigate the matter at a distance, I had to content myself with pushing out a little farther my infantry flanking parties and my rear guard. That night we camped at a place called Mountsville, where we were to rest two or three days. The next morning it was reported to me that Mosby's guerrillas were hovering all around us, and had already picked up some army vehicles and sutlers' wagons, as well as a number of stragglers.

At once I ordered out several strong infantry patrols to scour the country in all directions, and one of them I accompanied myself for the special purpose of establishing an outpost at a mill situated on a water-course, near which I had noticed on yesterday's march several loiterers of suspicious appearance. I rode ahead of the patrol, accompanied by an officer of my staff, two orderlies, and my staff bugler. Light-heartedly we enjoyed the freshness of the morning.

To get to the mill we had to pass through a little defile—a narrow, sunken road, slightly descending, and bordered on each side by an abrupt rise of ground covered with trees and underbrush. We had hardly entered this defile, when, at the lower end of it, perhaps two hundred yards ahead of us, we observed a troop of horsemen, ten or twelve of them, who advanced toward us. They looked rather ragged, and I took them for teamsters or similar folk. But one of my orderlies cried out: “There are the rebels!” And true enough, they were a band of Mosby's guerrillas. Now they came up at a gallop, and in a minute they were among us. While we whipped out our revolvers, I shouted to my bugler: “Sound the advance, double-quick!” which he did; and there was an instant “double-quick” signal in response from the infantry patrol, still hidden by the bushes, but close behind us. We had a lively, but, as to my party, harmless conversation with revolvers for a few