[134] Rappahannock. Our regiment had been on picket at Bealton Station as a support to Stuart's cavalry, and the enemy were rapidly advancing in large force, when another infantry regiment came down on a train of cars to relieve us. We had just gotten on the train, our friends were rapidly forming line of battle to meet the Federal advance, “Jeb” Stuart was going to the front with his “fighting jacket” on, and our train was slowly moving back, when a battery of the enemy galloped into position, and threw some shell, which shrieked through the air, and exploded uncomfortably near us. Immediately Colonel Walker called out in his clear, ringing tones, “It's all right, boys. The Thirteenth Foot Cavalry are mounted at last, and we will try the speed of our horse-flesh.” So saying, he ordered the engineer to increase his speed, and we rushed to the rear amid the shouts of the men, who gave “three cheers for the foot cavalry,” and made the woods echo with the camp song,
If you want to have a good time,The whole of Jackson's splendid corps was afterwards called “the foot cavalry;” but I believe that the above was the origin of the sobriquet. My grand old regiment afterwards won imperishable renown as it bore its tattered battle-flag into the very thickest of the fight on many a victorious field, but we never forgot those bright days with Stuart, when we had our “outpost service with the foot cavalry.”
Jine the cavalry.
