In a foliage-embowered house on a hill near Washington Colonel Jeb
Stuart, Commander of the Confederate Cavalry, had made his headquarters.
Neighing horses were hitched to the swaying limbs. They pawed the ground, wheeled and whinnied their impatience at inaction. Every man who sat in one of those saddles owned his mount. These boys were the flower of Southern manhood. The Confederate Government was too poor to furnish horses for the Cavalry. Every man, volunteering for this branch of the service, must bring his own horse and equipment complete. The South only furnished a revolver and carbine. At the first battle of Bull Run they didn't have enough of them even for the regiments Stuart commanded. Whole companies were armed only with the pikes which John Brown had made for the swarming of the Black Bees at Harper's Ferry. They used these pikes as lances.
The thing that gave the Confederate Cavalry its impetuous dash, its fire and efficiency was the fact that every man on horseback had been born in the saddle and had known his horse from a colt. From the moment they swung into line they were veterans.
The North had no such riders in the field as yet. Brigadier-General Phillip St. George Cooke was organizing this branch of the service. It would take weary months to train new riders and break in strange horses.
Until these born riders, mounted on their favorites, could be killed or their horses shot from under them, there would be tough work ahead for the Union Cavalry.
A farmer approached at sunset. He gazed on the array with pride.
He lifted his gray head and shouted:
"Hurrah for our boys! Old Virginia'll show 'em before we're through with this!"
A sentinel saluted the old man.
"I've come for Colonel Stuart. His wife and babies are at my house.
He'll understand. Tell him."