"How often when a boy I have shuddered at Indian atrocities. With what morbid pleasure I have searched through the early records of colonial history for details of horror, fatal surprise, and midnight massacre. How I have watched in imagination, with suspended breath, the wary, noiseless approach of the painted savages, till with one wide-ringing war-whoop they rushed upon their unconscious victims, destined now to either death or captivity. The dangers and terrors of open battle seemed nothing to this constant dread of an unseen treacherous foe. I little thought that it would one day be my fortune to live under very similar circumstances, for life in Virginia now is not so very different from that of our forefathers a century or more ago. Pioneers in this wilderness of despotism and treason, we are exposed to dangers and hardships not much inferior to theirs. Ever near us we know there is a great army watching with sleepless vigilance, and, like a wild beast crouching for its leap, it is ready to take advantage of the slightest mistake or show of weakness on our part. It is very strange, truly, when one comes to realize it, this living for years within a few miles of thousands who would take your life in a moment if they got a chance. "The forests and country around us swarm with guerillas. In place of some savage Indian chief, the terror of the whole border, the frontiers of our army are infested by the ubiquitous Mosby. The capture of a sutler's train near Fairfax and a raid upon an outpost on the Rappahannock occurring at the same time are both ascribed to Mosby in person by the soldiers. If a picket hears a distant gallop in the night upon one flank of the army, and a sudden shot startles the air upon the other flank, Mosby is invariably the author of both alarms. No wonder the poor contrabands say 'Mosby mus' be like de debbel and go all ober to oncst.' He was once captured by our regiment while bearing dispatches and afterwards exchanged. After he was taken he tried to escape by running his horse, but one of our men sent a bullet whistling so near his head that it produced a sober second thought, and he, from that time, followed quietly. But he was not so famous then, and had not so many trained associates like-minded with himself. Now they follow a marching column like hungry sharks about a ship, and woe be to the man that lags behind or strays from the main body.