Capt. C. H. Potter,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
CHAPTER VI.
Within a few weeks after I began operations in Northern Virginia, I received accessions to my command from various sources. I have before spoken of the convalescents in the hospital at Middleburg, out of whom I got some valuable service. The Confederate government did not furnish horses to the cavalry, but paid each man forty cents a day compensation for the use of his horse. When the trooper lost his horse, or it became disabled, he was given a furlough to go to get another. A great many of this class of men came to me, to whom I would furnish captured horses in consideration of their going with me on a few raids. I made a proposition to mount all the dismounted men of Fitz Lee's brigade in consideration of their serving with me a short time. It was declined, and they were sent over to Fauquier under command of an ambitious officer, who thought, like Sam Patch when he leaped over Genesee falls, that some things could be done as well as others. Reports of my forays, which had been almost uniformly successful, had spread through the army, and it seemed, after the thing had been done, to be a very easy thing to surprise and capture cavalry outposts. The result of this attempt at imitation was that all the dismounted men were returned as prisoners of war via Fort Monroe, the mounted officer who commanded them alone escaping capture.
About this time I received a valuable recruit in the person of Sergt. Ames of the 5th New York cavalry, who deserted his regiment to join me. I never really understood what his motives were in doing so. I never cared to inquire. The men of my command insisted that I should treat him simply as a prisoner, and send him back to join many of his comrades whom I had sent to Richmond. After a long conversation with him I felt an instinctive confidence in his sincerity. He came to me on foot, but proposed to return to camp and mount himself if I would receive him. It happened that a young man named Walter Frankland was present, who also came on foot to join my standard. With my consent they agreed to walk down to Fairfax that night, enter the cavalry camp on foot and ride out on two of the best horses they could find. At the same time, I started off on an expedition in another direction. I had not gone far before I struck the trail of a raiding party of cavalry that had been off into Loudoun committing depredations on the citizens. I met old Dr. Drake walking home through snow and mud knee deep. He told me that the Federal cavalry had met him in the road, while he was going around to attend to the sick, and had not only taken his horse but also his saddle-bags, with all his medicines. As the Confederacy was then in a state of blockade, medicine was more valuable than gold, and great suffering would be inflicted on a community by the loss even of Dr. Drake's small stock. He told us that the marauders were not far ahead, and we spurred on to overtake them. Fortunately, as they were not far from their camps, they deemed themselves safe, and scattered over the country a good deal.
Before going very far we overtook a party that had stopped to plunder a house. As they were more intent on saving their plunder than fighting, they scampered off, but we were close on their heels. We had intercepted them and were between them and their camp, so they had to run in an opposite direction. But very soon they came to a narrow stream, the Horsepen Run, which was booming with the melted snow. The man on the fleetest horse, who was some distance in advance of the others, plunged in and narrowly escaped being drowned. He was glad to get back even as a prisoner. The others did not care to follow his example, but quietly submitted to manifest destiny. We got them all. They were loaded down mostly with silver spoons, of which they had despoiled the houses they had visited. But the richest prize of all we got was old Dr. Drake's saddle-bags. I was strongly tempted to administer to each one of the prisoners a purge by way of making them expiate their offence. Now, when Dr. Drake parted with his saddle-bags, he never expected to see them again, and supposed that as long as the war lasted his occupation would be gone, as a doctor without medicine and implements of surgery is like a soldier without arms. His surprise and delight may be imagined when a few hours afterward his saddle-bags and the captured silver were brought to him to be restored to the owners.
We then proceeded on toward Fryingpan, where I had heard that a cavalry picket was stationed and waiting for me to come after them. I did not want them to be disappointed in their desire to visit Richmond. When I got within a mile of it and had stopped for a few minutes to make my disposition for attack, I observed two ladies walking rapidly toward me. One was Miss Laura Ratcliffe, a young lady to whom Stuart had introduced me a few weeks before, when returning from his raid on Dumfries—with her sister. Their home was near Fryingpan, and they had got information of a plan to capture me, and were just going to the house of a citizen to get him to put me on my guard, when fortune brought them across my path. But for meeting them, my life as a partisan would have closed that day. There was a cavalry post in sight at Fryingpan, but near there, in the pines, a large body of cavalry had been concealed. It was expected that I would attack the picket, but that my momentary triumph would be like the fabled Dead Sea's fruit—ashes to the taste—as the party in the pines would pounce from their hiding-place upon me.
A garrulous lieutenant had disclosed the plot to the young lady, never dreaming that she would walk through the snow to get the news to me. This was not the only time during the war when I owed my escape from danger to the tact of a Southern woman. I concluded then to go in the direction of Dranesville in search of game. When we reached Herndon Station, I learned that the contents of a sutler's wagon, that had broken down when passing there that day, were concealed in a barn near by. The sutler had gone into camp to get another team to haul his goods in. In the exercise of our belligerent rights, we proceeded to relieve him of any further trouble in taking care of them. He had a splendid stock of cavalry boots, with which he seemed to have been provided in anticipation of the wants of my men. Now, loaded down with what was to us a richer prize than the Golden Fleece, we started back, but could not forbear taking along a cavalry picket near by which was not looking for us, as it had been understood that we were to attack Fryingpan that night, where preparations had been made to receive us. Once more I had tempted fortune, and from "the nettle danger had plucked the flower safety."
On my return to Middleburg I found Ames and Frankland there in advance of me. They had entered the camp of the Fifth New York cavalry at night on foot, and had ridden out on two of the finest horses they could find in the stables. They had passed in and out without ever having been molested or challenged by the guard. Ames had not had time to exchange his suit of blue for a gray one, but Frankland was in full Confederate uniform. It was a perfectly legitimate enterprise, certainly, as open and bold as the capture in the night-time of the Palladium of Troy by Ulysses and Diomede. But still the men were not satisfied of Ames's good faith. They said that he had not betrayed Frankland because he wanted to entrap us all at one time. A few days after that, I once more put him to a test which convinced the men of his truth and fidelity. He seemed to burn with an implacable feeling of revenge toward his old companions in arms. I never had a truer or more devoted follower. He was killed in a skirmish in October, 1864, and carried the secret of his desertion to the grave. I had made him a lieutenant, and he had won by his courage and general deportment the respect and affection of my men. They all sincerely mourned his death.
Since the war I have often passed his lonely grave in a clump of trees on the very spot where he fell. The soldier who killed him was in the act of taking his arms off when one of my men rode up and shot him. Ames is a prominent figure in the history of my command. It was my habit either to go myself, with one or two men, or to send scouts, to find out some weak and exposed place in the enemy's lines. I rarely rested for more than one day at a time. As soon as I knew of a point offering a chance for a successful attack, I gathered my men together and struck a blow. From the rapidity with which these attacks were delivered and repeated, and the distant points at which they were made, a most exaggerated estimate of the number of my force was made. I have before spoken of John Underwood, to whose courage and skill as a guide I was so much indebted for my earlier successes. He was equally at home threading a thick labyrinth of pines in Fairfax or leading a charge. He was among the first everywhere, and I always rewarded his zeal. About this time I had sent him down on a scout, from which he returned informing me that a picket of thirty or forty cavalry had been placed at Herndon Station on the Loudoun & Hampshire Railroad. This was the very place where I had got the sutler's wagon the week before. I could hardly believe it—I thought it must be another trap—for I could not imagine why such a number of men should be put there, except for the purpose of getting caught. I had supposed that the enemy had been taught something by experience. I collected my men and started down, though I did not expect to find any one at Herndon when I got there.
Fearing an ambuscade, and also hearing that the reserve at the post stayed in a house, I thought I would try my luck in the daytime. Besides, as most of my attacks had been made at night, I knew they would not expect me in the day. Underwood conducted me by all sorts of crooked paths through the dense forests until we got in their rear. We then advanced at a walk along the road leading to their camp at Dranesville, until we came upon a vidette, who saw us, but did not have time either to fire or to run away. He was ours before he recovered his senses, he was so much surprised. About 200 yards in front of us, I could see the boys in blue lounging around an old sawmill, with their horses tied by their halters to the fence. It was past twelve o'clock, and the sun was shining brightly, but there was a deep snow on the ground. They were as unconscious of the presence of danger as if they had been at their own peaceful homes among the Green Mountains. It happened to be just the hour for the relief to come from their camp at Dranesville. They saw us approaching, but mistook us for friends. When we got within 100 yards, I ordered a charge. They had no time to mount their horses, and fled, panic-stricken, into the sawmill and took refuge on the upper floor. I knew that if I gave them time to recover from the shock of their surprise they could hold the mill with their carbines against my force until reënforcements reached them.