He swung himself into the saddle at the sound of the bugle as the hunter springs on horseback; and at such moments his cheeks glowed and his huge mustache curled with enjoyment.

The romance and poetry of the hard trade of arms seemed first to be inaugurated when this joyous cavalier, with his floating plume and splendid laughter, appeared upon the great arena of the war in Virginia." Precise people shook their heads, and called him frivolous, undervaluing his great ability.

Those best capable of judging him were of a different opinion.

Johnston wrote to him from the west: "How can I eat or sleep in peace without _you_ upon the outpost ?" Jackson said, when he fell at Chancellorsville: "Go back to General Stuart, and tell him to act upon his own judgment, and do what he thinks best, I have implicit confidence in him." Lee said, when he was killed at Yellow Tavern: "I can scarcely think of him without weeping." And the brave General Sedgwick, of the United States Army, said: "Stuart is the best cavalry officer ever _foaled_ in North America!" In the summer of 1862, when we present him to the reader, Stuart had as yet achieved little fame in his profession, but he was burning to distinguish himself.

He responded ardently, therefore, to the order of Lee, and was soon ready with a picked force of about fifteen hundred cavalry, under some of his best officers.