Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/84

 whereupon the guerrillas, no doubt frightened by the shouts of the patrol coming on at a run, hastily turned tail and galloped down the road, leaving in our hands one prisoner and two horses. We sped after them, but as soon as they had cleared the defile they scattered over the fields, and were soon lost to sight in the ravines and among the timber-belts around. The infantry patrol, of course, could not overtake them, but it found in a sheltered nook, at a distance from the road, several army vehicles, two sutlers' wagons, and a lot of our stragglers that had been captured.

About ten years later, when I was a member of the Senate of the United States, I was one day passing through the great rotunda of the Capitol, and was stopped by an unknown person with the question: “General, do you remember me?” He was a man of middle stature, a lean, close-shaven face, and a somewhat high-pitched voice. I should have judged him to be a genuine Yankee, especially as I thought I detected in his speech something of the nasal twang usually attributed to the New Englander. I had to confess that I did not remember him. “Well,” he replied; “but you surely recall a lively meeting you had with some of Mosby's men on a shady road near Mountsville, Loudoun, County, Virginia, on a fine July morning in 1863! I am Colonel Mosby, and I was there. You and I were together at arm's length on that occasion.” Of course, there was a hearty handshake and a merry laugh. And we good-naturedly confessed to one another how delighted each one of us would have been to bag the other. Shortly after the close of the Civil War, Colonel Mosby, the nimble and daring marauder, who had often given us much annoyance, “accepted the situation,” joined the Republican party, and was employed by the Union Government in various capacities.

During the summer weeks which followed, my command