PROLOGUE.


On the wall over the mantel-piece, here in my quiet study at
Eagle's-Nest, are two crossed swords. One is a battered old sabre worn
at Gettysburg, and Appomattox; the other, a Federal officer's dress
sword captured in 1863.

It was a mere fancy to place them there, as it was a whim to hang upon
that nail yonder, the uniform coat with its stars and braid, which
Stuart wore on his famous ride around McClellan in 1862. Under the
swords hang portraits of Lee, Jackson, and Stuart. Jackson wears his
old coat, and his brow is raised as though he were looking out from
beneath his yellow old cadet cap. Stuart is seated, grasping his sabre,
with his plumed hat resting on his knee. His huge beard flows on his
breast, his eyes are clear and penetrating, and beneath the picture I
have placed a slip cut from one of his letters to me, and containing
the words, "Yours to count on, J.E.B. Stuart." Lastly, the gray
commander-in-chief looks with a grave smile over his shoulder, the eyes
fixed upon that excellent engraving of the "Good Old Rebel," a private
of the Army of Northern Virginia, seated on a log, after the war, and
reflecting with knit brows on the past and the present.

From this sketch of my surroundings, worthy reader, you will perceive,
that I amuse myself by recalling the old times when the Grays and Blues
were opposed to each other. Those two swords crossed--those pictures of
Lee, Jackson, Stuart, and the "Old Rebel"--you are certain to think