May 25th, General Thomas’s troops, with the fearless Hooker in the advance, were sweeping toward Dallas, when the enemy crossed their path. The action of New Hope Church came off, leaving the Union colors streaming victoriously over the exulting volunteers. But there was a different flag taken from hostile hands. General Stoneman, the splendid cavalry officer, captured from the Third Texas Cavalry a black flag with a skeleton figured upon it together with a death’s head and cross-bones. This flag is no myth or creation of the wild fancy of some terrified trooper, but a reliable thing now in possession of a surgeon in the General’s command, and seen and handled by the members of General Schofield’s staff. They are said to have carried it from the first. What they expect to have understood by it is easily arrived at from the remark of a member of another Texas regiment who was taken prisoner and brought to headquarters. When asked by a member of the staff if he belonged to the regiment which carried the black flag, he replied that he did not, else he should not have been brought there. It is, perhaps, needless to state that our men are reported to have taken no prisoners from the Third Texas Cavalry. While the forces were approaching Dallas, occurred one of war’s striking contrasts, related by a participant in the scenes: “Last night the enemy kept up a lively demonstration along our whole line sufficient to interfere slightly with our slumbers at headquarters. About three o’clock yesterday afternoon Cheney’s First Illinois Battery, 20-pounder Parrott guns, opened a brisk fire upon a strong rebel fortification, one mile from Dallas, which frowns upon our lines at an altitude of nearly two hundred feet, and from which a fine view is easily obtained of our movements. The cannonade was continued till sunset, shells bursting in all directions, scattering their death-dealing fragments among loyal and disloyal. The monotony was relieved by the constant arrival of mounted orderlies bearing their important despatches of the enemy’s doings from the respective brigade and division commanders, while the music of the Minié balls, as they whistled through the trees over our heads, lent enough exhilarating excitement to the afternoon hours to dispel all thought of drowsiness. While the musketry rattled quite lively along our lines, causing the vales to reverberate, and the loud reports of the deadly rifles rang through the mountain forests, the military bands were discoursing sentimental and patriotic melodies within sound of the rebel lines.