Truth, subjected to mock trial and condemnation, scourged and spitted on, betrayed by secret foes, denied by avowed friends, staggering under its Cross, and sealed to-day in its sepulchre, bursts to-morrow the gates of death, rises with the crown, triumphant reigns throughout the world.
In our momentous struggle, what part "the cavalry" bore the tongue of your minstrel alone might fitly tell; representatives at home and in distant States, among the living and the dead, proclaim the stuff whereof it was made. Its chief glory is that it shared the glory of the Army of Northern Virginia. But discrimination may be made of peculiar excellence where comparison would be as odious as impossible. We watched while others slept, and snuffed the first breath of hostile approach. We were now in the van—now in the rear. Active movement often "multiplied our presence." Ubiquity scarce filled the measure of our duty. Eyes were we for those that were blind—ears for those that were deaf—without us. And the hundred hands of Briareus, though moved by a giant's arm, were powerless without the hundred eyes of Argus to see where they should strike.
But sense of sight and hearing and delicate touch were not all. What has been truly said in general of the individuality of the Confederate soldier, with special force applies to the cavalier. The training of an establishment of regulars may give power to machinery in obedience, moved even by mediocrity in command. The unavoidable absence of such previous training for our war, left greater scope for the unaided resources of individual genius in commanders and individual valor in men—the native prowess and intelligent obedience of a patriotic soldiery "combined by honor's sacred tie." The Virginia cavalry was "born, not made." The soil of this State seemed to be its habitat, and at the call of war, it—
| "Rose from the ground like feathered Mercury, And vaulted, with such ease, into its seat, As if an angel dropped down from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship." |
When, in the Syrian desert, a place where no man meets a friend, Saladin and a knight of the Red Cross met and prepared them for deadly encounter, the Soldan of Egypt and Syria, ere the crusaders' mace could be hurled at him, with matchless dexterity, turned his barb and thrice rode around his ponderous enemy. But when, in these latter days, like black clouds in the firmament of heaven, surcharged, sulphurous and ready to burst on the hushed, expectant air, great armies, not men, stood facing for the death-grapple, in sight of this fair city, then the peerless leader of "the cavalry," as on winged steed, like another Saladin, with magnificent sweep, encircled the foe and blazed the track of his coming doom.
The prophet Elijah with his garment parted the waters of the Jordan, and passed in a whirlwind from the sight of Elisha, who re-
