A half-hour’s rapid riding through the timber brought us close to the place where the roads forked and where I intended to take my first look at the blue-coats. The road here ran through thick woods. I knew I was close to it, but the undergrowth, through which we were riding, was so dense I could not see it. I also knew that if the enemy had not already passed this point, allowing them ordinary marching time, they could not be far off. Placing the men in line, some ten or fifteen steps apart, so they would be less likely to attract attention, we rode slowly and cautiously forward, feeling for the road. I took the place of lookout, and the men were to stop or move forward according to the motion of my hand. Mike was next to me on my right, some ten or fifteen steps away, and while I watched for the enemy, he was to watch me, and when I signaled him, he was to signal the next man, he the next, etc. We had gone perhaps fifty or seventy-five yards in this way, when I heard that dull, rumbling sound familiar to every old cavalryman, that told me we were in close vicinity of a large body of moving horses. Peering through the bushes in the direction of the sound, and without turning my head towards my men, I motioned them to stop. The rumbling noise grew louder and nearer. For a few seconds my little party were perfectly quiet, then Mike’s horse grew restless and began to move about. Watching intently in the direction of the approaching noise and without looking around, I again motioned Mike to keep quiet, but it did no good. I could hear him swearing vigorously in a low tone at the old “baste of a brute,” but it only seemed to make the horse worse; he not only continued to twist and turn about, but began to sneeze and stamp the ground. At that instant I saw the advance guard of the Federal column file around a bend in the road not two hundred yards below us. I could tell from the direction they were coming, that we were much nearer the road than I had supposed, and that they would pass dangerously close to where we were standing; at the same time Mike’s horse began to lunge around, snorting, sneezing, kicking and keeping up as much racket in the brush as a train of army wagons, while Mike himself was swearing by note and loud enough to be heard above it all.