We had been there several weeks, our horses had been wading in grass up to their knees. They had shed their winter coats, and were looking fine, and seemed to be ready for the fray.
Our principal article of food was fresh fish, caught from the Rappahannock river.
As we loitered around the camp from day to day, speculating as to when we should be called to the front, and discussing what would be the result of the coming battle, we began to get restless, as soldiers will. They live on excitement, and the booming of guns and the rattling of musketry is the sweetest music they can hear.
One bright May morning (it must have been about the first day of the month) we saw a courier with his horse all flecked with foam as he came dashing into our camp. He halted and asked for Gen. Stuart's headquarters. It proved to be a messenger from Gen. Lee, and it meant that the death-struggle was about to begin.
Soon the bugles were sounding all through the camps the old familiar call, "Saddle up, saddle up." We mounted, and each company forming in line and counting off by fours, wheeled into columns of two and marched off toward what was afterward known as the Battlefield of the Wilderness.
We arrived at the position assigned us about dark, where we went into camp in the woods, tying our horses to the trees and building camp-fires to cook our supper. I had (like the boy in the parable of the loaves and fishes) in my haversack a few small fresh fish, and I was wondering whether they would be sweet or not. I remember distinctly laying them on the coals of fire to broil. It has been 43 years since then, but I can assure you I can almost taste those fish today. I don't think I ever ate anything so sweet.
GEN. FITZHUGH LEE,
Who commanded a division of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry.
The next day we were in the saddle early. The cavalry formed the right wing of Lee's army. The battle lasted two days. The cavalry fought almost entirely on foot. It was mostly in heavy timber and thick undergrowth.