"Once again, last November, while on the march, Lieutenant Whitaker and myself were about to pass over a road between our wagon train and General Kilpatrick's headquarters, when a little incident detained us about fifteen minutes. As we were going by the house of quite a noted secessionist, some of our boys began to make free in his cabbage garden and poultry yard, and a scuffle ensued between the old citizen, his wife and daughter, and the soldiers. An infantry colonel who was at the house came violently out, and instead of quietly showing his rank and firmly ordering the men away, commenced cutting them with his sword, and made some quite serious wounds. It was with great difficulty that we prevented our men from killing him on the spot. But as the colonel outranked us, we could do nothing with him, and so passed on, but before we got fairly started upon the road again we met a man running, breathless, with his hat off, who said that he had just escaped from the guerillas. Lieutenant Newton of the First Vermont Cavalry was passing over the road with several men, when fifteen rebels sprang out upon him, killed one, took two prisoners, and the rest saved themselves only by rapid flight. If we had not been detained, we would have arrived at the same spot a few minutes earlier and received their concentrated fire. "At times they have captured our mail, and afterwards they have taunted us by shouting out the contents of our letters to our pickets across the Rappahannock. One very dark night they slipped into the quarters of one of our officers while he was on picket, shot his colored servant, and carried him off to Richmond. Thus vigilance is a cardinal virtue in this, as well as in the Christian warfare. But we never suffered as much on the south as on the north side of the Rappahannock. The country between the two rivers is now thoroughly occupied by our troops, and our picket lines so close and well posted as to render it almost impossible for the rebels to indulge themselves this winter in many murdering and horse-stealing expeditions." CHAPTER IV MARRIAGE--THE RAID TOWARD RICHMOND In November, 1863, Edward received a month's leave of absence from his regiment, and during this time was married to Miss Anna Sands. The ceremony was performed by the venerable Dr. Adams in Madison Square church, and was followed by a large reception at the bride's home in Seventeenth Street, New York. Leaving his bride there when the furlough was over, my brother returned to his regiment. In this letter, written just after reaching camp, he dwells upon some of the contrasts of army life.