About four in the afternoon we reached Fork church, and the command halted to rest.
Stuart stretched himself at full length, surrounded by his staff, in a field of clover; and placing his hat over his face to protect his eyes from the light, snatched a short sleep, of which he was very greatly in need.
The column again moved, and that night camped near Taylorsville, awaiting the work of the morrow.
At daylight on the 11th, Stuart moved toward Ashland. Here he came up with the enemy; attacked them furiously, and drove them before him, and out of the village, killing, wounding, and capturing a considerable number.
Then he put his column again in motion, advanced rapidly by the Telegraph road toward Yellow Tavern, a point near Richmond, where he intended to intercept the enemy—the moment of decisive struggle, to which all the fighting along the roads of Hanover had only been the prelude, was at hand.
Stuart was riding at the head of his column, looking straight forward, and with no thought, apparently, save that of arriving in time.
He was no longer gay. Was it the coming event; was it the loss of sleep; the great interest at stake; the terrible struggle before him? I know not; but he looked anxious, feverish, almost melancholy.
“My men and horses are tired, jaded, and hungry, but all right,” he had written to General Bragg, from Ashland.
And these words will serve in large measure to describe the condition of the great commander himself.
I was riding beside him, when he turned to me and said, in a low tone:—