sider the question, but they decided that as the commanding General had said "a fuse," nothing else could be used. So the letter of the order was obeyed, while the object in view was lost sight of. The fuse was accordingly lighted the night of the evacuation, and after burning awhile the fire died out. Neither Battery Wagner nor Battery Gregg, consequently, was blown up, and the enemy quietly took possession of them next morning and mounted their guns on our parapets.
Reminiscences of Cavalry Operations.
By General T.T. Munford.
Paper No. I.
Rev. J.Wm. Jones, Secretary Southern Historical Society:
Recent communications have appeared in the Philadelphia Weekly Times, written by officers who served in the Confederate cavalry. The reminiscences which these have revived, together with frequent solicitations from officers and soldiers of the brigade I had the honor to command so long and often, as senior Colonel and Brigadier General, have induced me at this late day to attempt a narrative of the work accomplished by that command when under my immediate supervision. My task is fraught with difficulties, and if its execution is defective I hope, in the interest of history, it will be corrected by those whose memories serve them better than my own. To attempt more than a general outline would be beyond my limit. Brigadier-General W.C. Wickham, my immediate predecessor, was elected to the Confederate Congress in the spring of 1863, and soon thereafter was promoted as Brigadier-General of cavalry. He held both commissions until October, 1864, when he resigned his military commission. It happened that in nearly every important engagement, if he was present, he commanded the division and I his brigade. Whenever we co-operated with other cavalry brigades in the Valley of Virginia, General Fitz Lee being the senior Major-General, he would take command of the whole, Wickham of the division and I of the brigade. General Fitz Lee having been seriously wounded at the battle of Winchester, 19th September, I had command of Wickham's brigade from that time, except at the battle of Cedar Creek, when I was absent on sick leave. At General Rosser's Tom's Brook cavalry disaster, where we lost nearly "everything on
