302 Southern Historical Society Papers.
on by the authorities as the only way to provide meat rations for the Confederate soldiers. Colonel Jackson informed Colo- nel Fontaine that night that he (Jackson) had been authorized by the authorities of Richmond to take part of the regiment which Colonel Fontaine had already recruited, and in conjunc- tion with some other detached companies to form what was afterwards known as the Nineteenth Virginia Cavalry Regiment. Colonel Jackson had letters from the department to Colonel Fon- taine, which he produced, and the latter turned over the troops to the former. As a boy, my sympathies were at once aroused in behalf of Colonel Fontaine, but it was explained to me, that the Confederate government had taken this step because of Colonel Jackson's known popularity in the Northwest part of Virginia, and if the contemplated raid succeeded, that Colonel Jackson would recruit sufficiently to organize a brigade, which lie did in the summer of 1863, and commanded throughout the war, and he was familiarly known as "Mud wall Jackson."
The writer desires just here to explain the acquisition of the character of William L. Jackson, as a Confederate soldier; the fact is, he was as brave a man as lived, and never refused to fight, when the attendant circumstances were anything like equal ; and now for the explanation of the title " Mud wall." In August, 1863, General Jackson was confronted and pressed by the Federal force, which was more than equal his own at Bev- erley, under the command of Colonel Thorn. Harris, of the Tenth West Virginia Infantry. At the same time, General William Woods Averill assembled a large force of cavalry, fully 6,000 men at Keyser. (which during the war was called New Creek Station), on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, in the month of August, 1863, made a dash to capture Jackson and his entire force; he went through Pendleton, Highland and Bath coun- ties, and only lacked five hours of getting in the rear of Jack- son, ten miles west of the Warm Springs, but Jackson went through without the loss of a man or a horse, and while Averill went on and fought the battle of "Dry Creek" or "White Sul- phur," where he was defeated on the 26th of August. The disappointed force that had come from Beverley remained two or three days at Huntersville, the county seat of Pocahontas,
