m-beat. Those who were for an hour in Richmond, in their worn grey
uniforms, with the gold lace grown tarnished (impossible of
replacement!), with their swords not tarnished, their netted silk
sashes, their clear bright eyes and keen thin faces, found friends
enough as they went to and fro--more eager questioners and eager
listeners than they could well attend to. One, a general officer, a man
of twenty-nine, in a hat with a long black plume, with the most charming
blue eyes, and a long bronze, silky, rippling beard which he constantly
stroked, could hardly move for the throng about him. Finally, in the
Capitol Square, he backed his horse against the railing about the great
equestrian Washington. The horse, a noble animal, arched his neck. There
was around it a wreath of bright flowers. The rider spoke in an
enchanting voice. "Now if I tell you in three words how it was and what
we did, will you let me go? I've got to ride this afternoon to Yellow
Tavern."

"Yes, yes! Tell us, General Stuart."

"My dear people, it was the simplest thing in the world! A man in the
First has made a song about it, and Sweeney has set it to the banjo--if
you'll come out to the camp after the battle you shall hear it! General
Lee wanted to know certain things about the country behind McClellan.
Now the only way to know a thing is to go and look at it. He ordered a
reconnoissance in force. I took twelve hundred cavalrymen and two guns
of the horse artillery and made the reconnoissance. Is there anything
else that you want to know?"

"Be good, general, and tell us what you did."

"I am always good--just born so! I rode round McClellan's army--Don't
cheer like that! The town'll think it's Jackson, come from the Valley!"

"Tell us, general, how you did it!"

"Gentlemen, I haven't time. If you like, I'll repeat the man in the
First's verses, and then I'm going. You'll excuse the metre? A poor,
rough, unlearned cavalryman did it.

"Fitz Lee, Roony Lee, Breathed and Stuart,
Martin to help, and Heros von Borcke,
First Virginia, Fourth, Ninth, two guns and a Legion--
From Hungary Run to Laurel Hill Fork,

"By Ashland, Winston, Hanover, Cash Corner,
Enon Church, Salem Church, Totopotomoy, Old Church,

"You observe that we are trotting.

"By Hamstead, Garlick, Tunstall Station, Talleyville,
Forge Mill, Chickahominy, Sycamore, White Birch.

"Here we change gait.