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Moreover, Stuart himself, who had ridden to Verdiersville with a small escort, narrowly escaped capture.
He had just narrowly escaped capture by a scouting-party of Federal cavalry at a house near Verdiersville, where he had passed the night. Leaving his hat, he mounted and leaped the fence with his horse. His adjutant, however, Major Fitzhugh, in possession of General Lee's instructions to General Stuart, was captured, and thus General Pope informed of the plan of campaign.
The design was thwarted by one of those petty accidents which play so large a part in war. Stuart had been instructed to lead the advance. The only brigade at his disposal had not yet come up into line, but a message had been sent to appoint a rendezvous, and it was expected to reach Verdiersville, five miles from Raccoon Ford, on the night of the 17th.
Stuart's message, however, was not sufficiently explicit. Nothing was said of the exigencies of the situation; and the brigadier, General Fitzhugh Lee, not realising the importance of reaching Verdiersville on the 17th, marched by a circuitous route in order to replenish his supplies. At nightfall he was still absent, and the omission of a few words in a simple order cost the Confederates dear.
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. You see I have no battles to describe on this occasion, reader.
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.
Strange and sombre country! lugubrious shades where death lurked! Already two great armies had clutched there in May, 1863. Now, in May, '64, the tangled thicket was again to thunder; men were going to grapple here in a mad wrestle even more desperate than the former! Two roads stretch from Orange Court-House to Chancellorsville the old turnpike, and the plank road running through Verdiersville.
Stuart returned to his bivouac in the pine wood near Verdiersville, where he had slept without tents, by his camp-fire, all these freezing nights.
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