history to-day know anything of the cavalry fight at Fleetwood, six miles from Culpeper Courthouse, June 9th, 1863, where twenty thousand horsemen were engaged from early in the morning until nightfall? Many men are living now who witnessed the great pageant, and saw the "pomp and circumstance" of war in the review of ten thousand horsemen by General R. E. Lee on the lovely fields of Culpeper the 8th of June, 1863. Many a young man in the flush and vigor of manhood, rode proudly past the commanding general that day, who, before another day's sun had sunk behind the western hills, was sleeping his last sleep, having fought his last battle. The survivor's of Stuart's cavalry can never forget these two days of their history. The splendid scenery around Brandy Station; the broad fields clothed in green; the long lines of troopers, marching by fours, on every road leading to the place of rendezvous, and forming into squadrons and regiments and brigades, under the eye of Stuart and General R. E. Lee; the review; and then the return to camp and one more night's rest before the bloody encounter of the 9th. The memories of that day of carnage and death; the charge and counter-charge; the shouts of victory; the hasty retreat when columns were broken; the re-formation and renewed attack; the quick death of some and the dying groans of others; the ghastly wounds-all these come before the mind's eye as memory recalls the scene. On this day, when the cavalry was so successfully resisting Pleasanton's reconnoisance in force to ascertain the position of our army, then moving through the village of Culpeper Courthouse on the Gettysburg campaign, General Lee was near Culpeper, and wrote these touching lines to Mrs. Lee: "I reviewed the cavalry in this section yesterday. It was a splendid sight. The men and horses looked well. They had recuperated since last fall. Stuart was in all his glory. The country here looks very green and pretty, notwithstanding the ravages of war. What a beautiful world God, in his loving kindness to his creatures, has given us. What a shame that men, endowed with reason and a knowledge of right, should mar his gifts." The forces engaged in the battle of "Fleetwood" consisted, on the Federal side, of three divisions of cavalry-twenty-four regiments-and two brigades of infantry, consisting of ten regiments, numbering in all nearly 11,000 men. All of these, save Russell's infantry, were engaged in battle. On the Confederate side there were five brigades of cavalry, containing twenty-one regiments, the whole numbering 9, 500 men. Robinson's brigade was not engaged at all; so that the Federals must have greatly outnumbered the Confederates. The losses sustained show the severity of the engagement. The Confederate loss was 530, and the Federal 936 killed and wounded. We have often heard the facetious infantryman inquire, as we filed through their camps, "Whoever saw a dead mule or a dead cavalryman?” Had they been present that day their curiosity would have been fully satisfied. * * * * * When war's alarm sounded, and the cry "to arms!" was heard from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, these valorous knights, animated with a devotion as pure and sacred as ever nerved the heart or fired the breast of the true and tried, in the days of chivalry, turned from their peaceful pursuits, and, encouraged by the approving smiles of the fair women of the South, marshaled under the ensigns prepared by their own fair hands and presented with the injunction that living they were to defend it, or dying make it the winding sheet to enwrap them for Immortality. The history of the sacrifices of these noble spirits and their heroic struggles against superior numbers has not yet been written. It is imperative that each officer should in his turn write the history of his own command. Isolated-often by companies, regiments and brigades-they fought a thousand splendid engagements, the recital of the story of which would eclipse the deeds of Hernando Cortes, and the romance of which there is scarcely a record. Said a distinguished writer during the war, "How unfortunate it is that so many fine engagements of the cavalry are lost sight of in the great battles of infantry and artillery that follow." He was doubtless referring to the very fight we have described, or to the brilliant engagement of Fitz Lee at Todd's Tavern, where that daring. and gallant commander, with Wickham's and Lomax's brigades, held back Sheridan's cavalry and a portion of the Fifth Army Corps a day and a night, until Longstreet could reach the scene of action and place his seared ranks in front of Grant's heavy colums. Ten thousand stories unchronicled on the historic page are told by comfortable hearthstones, or wherever comrades meet; stories of hardship and ever recurring dangers, where they fell-not by scores and hundreds it may be-but by twos and tens; on the outposts, in advance guards, in surprises, by the camp-fires as they slept-or waking, died midst flame and smoke, or, yet, in the grand charge by fours-by squadrons or in the line where the earth trembled, as it does when volcanic fires are throbbing at its heart. Stories of officers and men-living and dead-the Lees sharing the name and rivaling the name of Light Horse Harry, Rosser and Murat of the mounted charge, and the glorious Cavalier of the Palmetto State, who we have seen carve his name on the roll of fame, high among the civic heroes of this age; of "Maryland! My Maryland!" and the brave men who knew no boundary line between their own and the “mother of States." One patriotic duty the survivors of the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia aided by the Sons of Veterans, and particularly the grateful women of Virginia, will soon perform, and that is, erect a suitable shaft to the memory of the Prince of Cavaliers, whom Virginia nurtured in the time of her resplendent glories. As we recall his pure and noble life, his unselfish devotion to his country, his heroic defense of her capital city, and his untimely death, we exclaim: "There is no prouder name even in thy own proud clime, We tell thy doom without a sigh, For thou art freedom's now, and fame's! One of the few--the immortal names that were not born to die!" While the story of Thermopyla fires the heart of patriotism, and the charge at Balaklava brightens the lamp of chivalry, the deeds at Kelly's Ford, Brandy Station, Haw's Shop, Trevillian's and a hundred other places shall write them: The knightliest of the knightly race, Who, since the days of old, Have kept the lamp of chivalry While the historians of the North and South have been recording the battles that were fought in the War between the States, and Daniel, and McCabe, and Robinson, and Marshall, and Evans have drawn word-paintings of Gettysburg, the Crater, the Wilderness and Cold Harbor, until every veteran's son knows the part that was played by the infantry and artillery arms of the service, little has been recorded of the deeds performed by those who were both the eyes and ears of our army, who prepared the way for attack, prevented those dangerous flank movements, oftentimes fatal, and saved many a retreat from becoming a rout. Posterity will do justice to the memory of these heroes, and the faithful and painstaking historian, gathering up the scraps of history found among the scattered records of a generation, will hand down to the next a true account of the deeds of their fathers. Thus, other nations will learn more of their exploits, and delight to do reverence to their heroism. From the frozen shores of the Baltic to the Isles of Greece, all Europe shall honor their chivalric souls and learn to measure their manhood by that of her own heroic slain. Scotland shall name them with those who fell at Bannockburn; England recognize them in the spirits of Balaklava, and France count them worthy to descend to posterity with those of her own Imperial Guard. THE RED ARTILLERY. Confederate Ordnance During the War. THE DIFFICULTY OF OBTAINING IT. Plan Proposed to Increase Accuracy and Range of Smooth-Bore William Le Roy Broun, President Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, formerly lieutenant-colonel of ordnance of the Confederate army, commanding the Richmond Arsenal, contributes the following article to the Journal of the United States Artillery of April, 1898: In complying with your request to write an article for your Journal, giving experiences and difficulties in obtaining ordnance during the war, I will endeavor, relying on my memory and some available memoranda preserved, to give you a statement of the collection and manufacture of ordnance stores for the use of the Confederate armies, so far as such manufacture was under my observation and control. After a year's service in the field as an artillery officer, I was ordered to Richmond and made Superintendent of Armories, with the rank of major in the regular army, a new office in the Confederate States Army, and sent to various points in North Carolina and Georgia to inspect and report on the facilities possessed by different manufactories for making arms, swords, sulphuric acid, etc. As a general rule the facilities for manufacturing were meagre and crude, giving little prospect for an early serviceable product Early in the spring of 1862 I was ordered to report at Holly Springs, Miss., and take charge of a factory just purchased by the Confederacy, and designed for the manufacture of small arms. It was not many months before the defeat of the Confederate army under General Albert Sydney Johnston, at Shiloh, Tenn., caused a hurried removal of all the machinery to Meridan, Miss. Having reported to the chief of ordnance at Richmond, Va., I was assigned to duty connected with the Ordinance Department. The Confederate Congress had authorized the appointment of fifty new ordnance officers, and the applications to the War Department became so numerous and persistent for these appointments that the Secretary of War, Colonel Randolph, ordered that all applicants should submit to an examination, and that appointments would be made in order of merit, as reported by the Board of Examiners. Thus, what we are now familiar with as civil-service examinations, were introduced by the Confederate War Department in 1862, in the appointment of ordnance officers. I was made Lieutenant-Colonel of Ordnance, and as President of the Board, with two other officers, constituted the Board of Examiners. By direction of General J. Gorgas, the Chief of Ordnance, I prepared a Field Ordnance Manual by abridging the old United States Manual and adapting it to our service when necessary. This was published and distributed in the army. The examination embraced the Field Ordnance Manual, as contained in this abridged edition, the elements of algebra, chemistry and physics, with some knowledge of trigonometry. The first examinations were held in Richmond. Of course, the fact of the examinations greatly diminished the number of applicants. Of those recommended by the Board, so many were from Virginia that the President declined to appoint them until an equal opportunity was given to the young men of the different armies of the Confederacy in other States. Hence, I was directed to report to and conduct examinations in the armies of Generals Lee and Jackson in Virginia, General Bragg in Tennessee, and General Pemberton in Mississippi. Under other officers, examinations were conducted in Alabama and Florida. The result of this sifting process was that the army was supplied with capable and efficient ordnance officers. Early in 1863 I was appointed commandant of the Richmond Arse |