and the patrol failed to pass that evening.
In the morning the Captain moved his people by the Poorhouse to another point on the road; but, after waiting about two hours, found the enemy advancing in strong force of infantry and cavalry to occupy the Court House, and on exchanging a few shots found a full brigade developed against him, when he retired.
On the way to camp in the afternoon the Confederate pickets at Jack’s Shop, without any warning at all, fired upon the little company, fortunately without doing any damage, when the Captain galloped forward alone and succeeded in rallying the retreating pickets and convincing them that they were running from their own men.
When White’s men came up they found their Captain talking very sharply to the pickets about firing on him before they halted him, and high words were passing, when one of the firing party said "if you wasn’t a Captain you shouldn’t talk that way;" but the Captain exclaimed "no I ain’t; I’m no Captain; I’m Lige White, and can whip you any way! Come on! I dare you!" But nobody took up the gauntlet; and with a pleasant little malediction on cowards everywhere, but especially on picket, the ranger chief marched on to camp.
About the 6th of August Gen. Jackson commenced to show some uneasiness, and ordered Gen. Ewell down the road towards Louisa, but came back the next evening, and instead of halting at the old camp, kept right on towards Culpeper, and commenced picketing beyond Robertson river. The boys begun to have ideas that the man with the movable headquarters had better commence moving; but when they found that Jackson’s Quartermaster-General (Banks) was in front, they said they "just knew ’Old Stonewall’ was getting scarce of supplies and only came up after some."
On the morning of the 9th, as White’s boys were lazily lying around the shady yard of the house where General Ewell’s headquarters were, talking about the prospects, in imagination, of ever seeing Loudoun again, and listening to the General’s baby-talk to some little children he had coaxed to come to him on the porch, Gen. Jackson rode up, and very soon the two were studying intently some maps and papers which they spread out on the floor.
Gen. Ewell’s ideas appeared to be in accord with "Stonewall’s," and they soon laid themselves out for a rest; but after dinner everybody got busy all at once, and it wasn’t very long until we found ourselves face to face with a Yankee line of cavalry deployed as vedettes, and apparently bent on investigating the rebel operations and ascertaining why they came so near to Gen. Banks’ wagon trains at Culpeper C. H. Their cavalry was commanded by Gen. Prince, who had been a classmate of Stuart at West Point, and was a fine officer, and a gentleman. His troops were splendidly drilled, and the first that White’s men had seen who performed their evolutions on the field at the sound of the bugle. About 3 o’clock Capt. White and Lieut. Myers rode out on the lines, to gratify their curiosity, to see what was going on, and before they were aware of it almost, were witnessing the movements of a regiment of cavalry, that deployed most beautifully as the bugle notes floated musically on the air, and in a short time had advanced to a fence not a hundred yards from the curiosity hunters, who quietly rode off as a shell from one of Jackson’s guns exploded in a group of Yankee cavalry. While riding up the line a Yankee approached them from the woods, but scampered away again as Capt. White called to him “come here to me, you rascal.” About an hour after this Gen. Ewell called for his cavalry to go with him, and riding at a gallop, soon reached the foot of Slaughter Mountain, where White’s boys, by order of the General, dismounted, and dragged Lattimer’s Battery of artillery to the top of the mountain, where the “Napoleon of the Valley,” as General Jackson called Capt. Lattimer, commenced firing as soon as his first piece was in position, and until his own men came up with the remainder of the battery, White’s men acted as gunners for him. By this time the blue and the gray were getting into a very warm fight down on the plain at the foot of the mountain, and Lattimer’s first shot was a fine one, exploding exactly at a Yankee battery, but the blue jackets instantly replied with one gun, which sent a shell within two feet of the muzzle of Capt. L.’s piece, striking the trail of the gun-carriage.
The shells and solid shot now hailed thick around the Confederate position on the mountain, and the Louisiana brigade, which had taken post there, enjoyed it hugely, some of the men being on the open ground in front, instead of in rear of the battery, where they belonged, would run to the places where the Yankee shot tore up the earth and coolly sit down, saying they were safe now, “as lightning never struck twice in the same place,” but some of them lost their heads by the operation in spite of the proverb.
The battle raged with great violence until dark, and even when her sable wing had spread over the wild scene of blood and death, the artillery continued to fire, and if there is anything in war that can be called splendidly beautiful, it is a night cannonade, when high overhead, in the very middle, apparently, of the black field, the hissing shells fly in curving lines of beauty, leaving behind them a track of sparkling flame, until the explosion blazes a lurid glare all around the sky, which can he likened to nothing better than to the fitful flashings of Aurora in her most gorgeous masquerades.
When the firing ceased White’s men had left the mountain and advanced to a house near where the Yankee battery which had been the recipient of Lattimer’s first compliment had stood, the enemy having been driven back a considerable distance, and here they laid down and slept soundly till daylight, when their first notion was to look around for Yankees and plunder, in which interesting occupation they passed the time until noon, having secured a number of prisoners and quite a large quantity of arms and other trophies of the battle-field.