"Rec'd 8-20.
"Col. J. S. Mosby,
"Care Major Boyle, Gordonsville:
"Collect your command and watch the country from front of Gordonsville to Blue Ridge, and also Valley. Your command is now all in that section, and the General will rely on you to watch and protect the country. If any of your command is in the Northern Neck. call it to you.
"Assistant Adjutant-General."
It was forwarded from Gordonsville by courier to me in Loudoun.
A few days afterwards we heard from Appomattox. My battalion was then on the line of the Potomac, where the war had begun. For General Lee I have always had a deep affection, but, to my mind, the fashionable cult that exalts him above mortality and makes him incapable of error is as irrational as the mystic faith of the Hindoo in Buddha.
And now, in conclusion, I will say that some may think that Stuart needed no defense; and will apply to my effort to rescue his memory from undeserved blame the words of Milton on a monument to Shakespeake—
"Dear Son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What needs't thou such weak witness of thy name."
Washington, D. C. January, 1910.
