to take the horses wherever they could be found. A wagon with two good horses drove between our fire and that of the squadron lying next. A captain stepped out, stopped the wagon, and the horses were taken out and appropriated—the boy driving them ran off—and soon there came riding up a dashing young quartermaster on a fine grey horse, groomed to perfection, and horse and rider redolent of the sybaritism of the department, claimed the horses as belonging to his department, with a most insolent air, looking daggers and court martials, and swelling as only overfed subsistence agents on home duty could do. While he was talking I saw Captain D. walking round him looking at the gallant grey, and then at our colonel inquiringly. A nod from the colonel and Captain D's hand was on the grey's bridle, and a quiet but firm request, that sounded very much like an order, for him to get down, as his horse was wanted for cavalry service. The man of the subsistence and transportation department was so dumbfounded that he would have let pass the best operation possible of making money out of the necessities of the people for which his tribe was famous; but just then a bugle rang out the call for "boot and saddle;" the bugles of the other regiments took it up; the momentary diversion of the horse pressing and the quartermaster was forgotten; work was at hand; the rumbling of the artillery and wagons crossing the bridge, with columns of infantry between, could be heard down in the town at the foot of the hill, and the cavalry were wanted on the other side of the town, by the Randolph House, to hold the enemy in check and cover the crossing of the river.

The brigade was soon in the saddle, and moving at a swinging trot down the long street that constitutes mainly the town of Farmville. As the regiment passed a large building on the right, which was shown to be a boarding school for young ladies, from the number gathered on the piazza in front, we were greeted by their waving handkerchiefs and moist eyes, while cheer after cheer rose from our men in response to their kindness and sympathy. They did not know, as we did, that their friends and defenders were to pass by, leaving them so soon in the hands most dreaded by them. They saw us going to the front; our men were excited by the circumstances and the prospect of a fight, and the light of that wild glory that belongs to war shone over it all. The rough, grey soldier, the tramping column, and the groups of tender girls, mixed with it like flowers on a battle field, incongruous in detail, but blending with the picture, like discords in music, making it complete.

So on through the town, across the little stream, and up the hill, on the top of which on the right stood a large white building, called, as I recollect, the Randolph House; in the field around were gathered and gathering large bodies of our cavalry, under the command of General F.H. Lee, General Rosser and other distinguished cavalry officers. We took our position among them. As before stated, our column, artillery and wagon train, were pouring in a steady stream across the bridge, and the enemy were pressing up their artillery, and already throwing long shots at it from batteries not near enough to do much if any harm, and too much under cover to admit of an effectual attack from us.

General Lee dismounted the most of his command and formed a line of battle along the road looking toward the point from which the enemy were advancing.

We (our brigade) were kept in the saddle at the point we first occupied on the right of the road. There was a house some three hundred yards from the road on the left, directly in front of General Lee's line, in a grove of oak, with a lane or avenue leading to it from the main road. Behind the house a battery seemed gradually advancing and already throwing its shells at or about the bridge. So far they were completely masked by the house, and we could only judge of their movements from their fire, which seemed closer every moment.

In pursuance of some order we changed our position, and rode to General Lee's dismounted line of battle. As we rode up—our regiment, the Seventh, leading—we were the right flank regiment in the brigade formation, and in column with the right in front were necessarily in advance. The battery seemed by this time to have gotten immediately behind the house, and was pitching shells about the bridge and into the town (the bridge was at the foot of the street) with precision and rapidity. Expecting to see it unmask itself in front of the house every moment, General Lee said to our colonel, "Haskell, as soon as that battery shows itself take it with your regiment; you can do it."

We moved at once down the avenue toward the house up to the edge of the oak wood, with which the lawn in front was surrounded, formed the regiment in column of fours in the road. The colonel rode along the side of the column, the adjutant detailing three of the best mounted men from each company—the horses were the animals specially selected—the men at that stage of the game were all known to be good—making thirty men, and the senior captain, Doby, in immediate command of the party.

The colonel rode in front of the halted column some forty or fifty yards, with his thirty men, after directing the officer next in command to ride down the flank of the regiment, form, and speak to each "set of fours" separately. Each set of fours waited for the word of command to be given to themselves specially, and as the order was given "to close up and dress," they did so steadily and firmly, and I looked into the eyes of each man in the regiment, and they looked into mine. There was little left for words to say.

There we sat, waiting to charge the battery that was momentarily expected to unmask in front of the house—something over two hundred men of the thousand on our muster roll, and all the cavalry of the army of Northern Virginia, looking on to see how we did it.

The shells from the battery whistled four or five feet above our heads, for they had discovered our line on the hill and turned their fire on it. The shells went over our heads, but struck a few feet in front of General Lee's dismounted line, making gaps in it as they did so.

Just then information was received that our marching column had crossed the bridge—our charge was not to be—there was nothing to wait for. General Lee mounted his men, formed, and moved off promptly to cross the river at a ford some two miles farther up, leaving General Gary with his brigade to cover his retreat. We drew off from the position we had taken to attack the battery, the regiment resuming its position at the head of the brigade, with the exception of Colonel Haskell, Captain Doby, and the thirty men before chosen—this party remained in the rear of the brigade, all moving off slowly, the last of General Lee's division having by this time gone out of sight over the top of the hill.

We had not yet been able to perceive that the bridge was on fire. General Gary said that General Lee had left it to his discretion to cross at the bridge if he could, as he expected we would be pressed very closely at the last; so, instead of following General Lee's line of retreat, we turned down towards the town again and halted in the street while the General himself galloped down to the bridge to see if it was practicable. The shells were bursting over the town, and in the street occasionally, while the good people of Farmville, in a state of great though natural alarm, were leaving with their goods forthwith. We told them we were going at once; were not to make a fight in the town; to keep quiet in their houses, and it was not probable they would be interfered with.

The bridge, bursting into smoke and flame,