War loses a great deal of its romance after a soldier has seen his first battle. I have a more vivid recollection of the first than the last one I was in. It is a classical maxim that it is sweet and becoming to die for one's country; but whoever has seen the horrors of a battle-field feels that it is far sweeter to live for it. The Confederate generals had expected a battle on our right; as a fact, our left wing was turned, and the battle was mostly fought by Johnston's troops, who, having come up the day before, had been held in reserve. Stuart's regiment having just arrived, had not been sent on the outposts, and hence is in no way responsible for the surprise. In the crisis of the battle, when Jackson with his brigade was standing like a stone wall against the advancing host, he called for Stuart's cavalry to support him. Stuart sent one squadron to Jackson's right, under the Major, who did nothing (I was with him), while with six companies he came up on Jackson's left, just in time to charge and rout the Ellsworth Zouaves. Their general, in his report, says that he was never able to rally them during the fight. This cavalry charge had an important effect upon the fortunes of the day, as it delayed the enemy, and gave time for troops to come to the relief of Jackson, who was then hard pressed by superior numbers. Stuart afterward, with a battery of artillery, led the turning movement that caused the rout, and associated the stream of Bull Run with the most memorable panic in history. Shortly after the battle, all the cavalry of the army was organized into a brigade, with Stuart in command. Jones was also promoted to be colonel of the regiment, and Fitz Lee became lieutenant-colonel. From this time until the army evacuated Manassas, in the spring of 1862, the cavalry was almost exclusively engaged in outpost duty. McClellan kept close to the fortifications around Washington while he was organizing the army of the Potomac, and his cavalry rarely ventured beyond his infantry pickets. No field was open for brilliant exploits; but the discipline and experience of a life on the outpost soon converted the Confederate volunteers into veterans. Without intending any disparagement, I may say that the habits and education of Northern men had not been such as to adapt them readily to the cavalry service, without a process of drilling; while, on the contrary, the Southern youth, who, like the ancient Persians, had been taught from his cradle "to ride, to shoot, and speak the truth," leaped into his saddle, almost a cavalryman from his birth. The Cossacks, who came from their native wilds on the Don to break the power of Napoleon, had no other training in war than the habits of nomadic life; and in the same school were bred the Parthian horsemen who drove to despair the legions of Crassus and Antony.