Darke recoiled, and a furious flash darted from his eyes. Then his left hand went to his hilt; he drew a pistol; and spurring close up to Mohun, placed the weapon on his enemy’s breast, and fired. The bullet passed through Mohun’s breast, but at the same instant Darke uttered a fierce cry. Mohun had driven his sword’s point through the Federal officer’s throat--the blood spouted around the blade--a moment afterward the two adversaries had clutched, dragged each other from their rearing horses, and were tearing each other with hands and teeth on the ground, wet with their blood. One of Mohun’s men leaped from horseback and tore them apart. “A sword! give me a sword,” exclaimed Mohun, hoarsely. And rising to his feet, he clutched at an imaginary weapon,--his lips foamed with blood,--and reeling, he fell at full length on the body of his adversary, who was bathed in blood, and seemed to be dying. What is here described, all took place in a few minutes. In that time the enemy’s column had been broken, and hurled back. Suddenly the wild Southern cheer rang above the woods. Stuart and Fitz Lee had united their forces; in one solid column they pressed the flying enemy, banging and thundering on their rear with carbines and cannon. Kilpatrick was defeated; his column in hopeless rout. “Stuart boasts of having driven me from Culpeper;” he is reported to have said just before the fight, “and now I am going to drive _him_.” But Stuart was not driven. On the contrary, he drove Kilpatrick. Some of the enemy’s column did not stop, it is said, before they reached the banks of the Potomac. Such was the dramatic termination of the last great cavalry campaign of Stuart. The affair came to be known as “The Buckland Races,” and Stuart’s old sabreurs still laugh as they recall the comedy. XIII. TWO SCENES IN DECEMBER, 1863. The campaign of October, 1863, was over. Lee was behind the Rapidan. In December General Meade struck a blow, in turn, at his adversary. Shall we glance, in passing, at that affair of Mine Run? I saw a spectacle there--and a sad one, too--which I am tempted to describe, though aware it has little to do with my narrative. I have left Colonels Mohun and Darke in a bloody embrace yonder near Buckland. I ought to relate at length how they were not dead, and how they in due time recovered, but for the moment I think of a fine sight, and a weeping face, which I saw in the woods below Verdiersville. Let us ride thither, reader, it will not take long. In December, then, General Meade crossed the lower Rapidan, and advanced to assail General Lee in his works above. A fiasco followed. Meade marched toward Verdiersville; found his adversary behind earth-works, near that place; reconnoitered them, felt them, moved backward and forward before them--and then, one morning, before General Lee was aware of the fact, quietly disappeared, returning to the north bank of the Rapidan.