As the enemy broke, Stuart stopped his horse, slapped his thigh, and turning to me laughing, and with that indifference to rank which always characterized him under excitement, exclaimed: “They haven’t got over it yet, have they?”
The Manassas panic always did impress Stuart as an irresistible joke.
A moment later he said: “I’m glad you reported those rockets. Always report whatever you see. Even a shooting star may mean something at headquarters.”
But I have never ceased to wonder why we guards that night had no orders to look out for red, white, and blue rockets, since they meant so much. If they had not been reported by a tired and lonely sentinel, we should have been run over in our tents by a force of ten thousand men.
A celebrated writer says: “War is a hazard of possibilities, probabilities, luck, and ill luck.”
It was luck that night that a sentry was tired of singing “Juanita” under his breath.
SCRUGGS
SCRUGGS lived throughout the war in that debatable land between the lines in Northern Virginia, where it was always a wonder that anybody could live at all.
And Scruggs lived well, too. He was not able to work, because in order to keep out of the army he had found or feigned a physical disability of some kind.
We always knew that we could get accurate information concerning the enemy by going to Scruggs for it. He frequented their camps as freely as he did ours. He kept his eyes open. He always knew all the important facts, and he was always eager to tell them.