Fairfax Court House was the extreme limit at which the infantry was
posted on that side of the Blue Ridge. Cavalry was still in advance,
and under the leadership of the indefatigable Stuart scouting the
whole front between the Confederate and Federal armies. The Third
South Carolina was encamped about a mile north of the little old
fashioned hamlet, the county seat of the county of that name. In this
section of the State lived the ancestors of most of the illustrious
families of Virginia, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Lee.
It is a rather picturesque country; not so beautiful and productive,
however, as the Shenandoah and Luray Valleys. The Seventh, Eighth, and
Second Regiments were encamped several miles distant, but all in the
hearing of one another's drums. Our main duties outside of our regular
drills consisted in picketing the highways and blockading all roads by
felling the timber across for more than a hundred yards on either side
of the roads. Large details armed with axes were sent out to blockade
the thoroughfares leading to Washington and points across the Potomac.
For miles out, in all directions, wherever the road led through wooded
lands, large trees, chestnut, hickory, oak, and pine, were cut pell
mell, creating a perfect abattis across the road--so much so as to
cause our troops in their verdant ignorance to think it almost an
impossibility for such obstructions to be cleared away in many days;
whereas, as a fact, the pioneer corps of the Federal Army cleared it
away as fast as the army marched, not causing as much as one hour's
halt. Every morning at nine o'clock one company from a regiment would
go out about two miles in the direction of Washington Falls church or
Annandale to do picket duty, and remain until nine o'clock next
day, when it would be relieved by another company. The "Black Horse
Cavalry," an old organization of Virginia, said to have remained
intact since the Revolution, did vidette duty still beyond the
infantry. Their duties were to ride through the country in every