Thirty guns of the horse artillery moved into position—not for battle, but for a splendid review. Right and left, emerging from the Virginia forest and the leafy defiles between the hills, came with earth-shaking tread the cavalry, a great force of cavalry, Jeb Stuart’s splendid brigades! In the misty, early morning they moved into line, having come up from Brandy Station to a plain north of Culpeper Court-House. It was the eighth of June, something more than a month after Chancellorsville. Beckham’s Horse Artillery, that had been John Pelham’s, having got into position, proceeded to take interest in the forming cavalry. There was so magnificently much of cavalry; it was so rested, so recuperated, so victorious, so proud of its past and determined as to its future, so easy, so fine, so glorious, so stamped, in short, with the stamp of Jeb Stuart, that to watch it was like watching a high and gay pageant! The sound of its movement, its jingle and clank, was delightful; delightful the brave lilt of voices, the neighing of impatient horses, delightful the keen bugles! The mist being yet heavy, there was much of mere looming shapes, sounds out of a fogbank. The plain was far spread, the review meant to be a noble one. There was a sense of distant gaiety as of near. The mist hid panoplied war, and far away bugles rang with an elfin triumph. A certain company of the horse artillery was beautifully placed on a small, clear knoll, above it the fine leaves, the drooping, sweet bloom of a solitary locust. The guns were ranged in order, the horses in harness, cropping the wet grass where they stood. But it was early yet and the battery men had not received the order, _To your pieces!_ They were clustered in groups, watching the gathering cavalry. Lean and easy and powerful, bronzed and young, they cheerfully commented upon life in general and the scene below. “Jeb isn’t here yet! He bivouacked last night at Beverly Ford. Orderly, riding by, heard the banjo.” “Is this review his notion or Marse Robert’s?” “I reckon I can answer that. I was at headquarters. Jeb came out of that lovely little cabin he’s got with a letter in his hand which he read to Heros von Borcke—” “Yes?” “And he said in it that he didn’t believe there ever had been in this sinful world a finer cavalry force, and wouldn’t the greatest general on earth come over with some of his friends and review the greatest body of horse—” “Sounds like him.” “And he gave the letter to Heros von Borcke, who went off with it. And then I was at headquarters again—” “You sound like the Old Testament! Well, you were at headquarters again—?” “And Heros von Borcke brought an order from Marse Robert—Jeb and all of us to come over and be reviewed on the plain north of Culpeper. Marse Robert said he’d be there with ‘some of his friends’—” “Longstreet, I reckon. A.P. Hill’s still at Fredericksburg.”