this.  The run is a small water-course which, rising south of the great highway between Orange and Chancellorsville, flows due northward amid woods and between hills to the Rapidan, into which it empties itself a few miles above Germanna, General Meade’s main place of crossing.  This stream is the natural defence of the right flank of an army posted between Orange and the Rapidan.  It is also the natural and obvious line upon which to receive the attack of a force marching from below toward Gordonsville.  Behind Mine Run, therefore, just east of the little village of Verdierville, General Lee directed his two corps to concentrate; and at the word, the men, lounging but now carelessly in winter-quarters, sprung to arms, “fell in,” and with burnished muskets took up the line of march.

We have spoken of the promptness with which the movement was made, and it may almost be said that General Meade had scarcely broken up his camps north of the Rapidan, when Lee was in motion to go and meet him.  On the night of the 26th, Stuart, whose cavalry was posted opposite the lower fords, pushed forward in person, and bivouacked under some pines just below Verdierville; and before daylight General Lee was also in the saddle, and at sunrise had reached the same point.  The night had been severely cold, for winter had set in in earnest; but General Lee, always robust and careless of weather, walked down, without wrapping, and wearing only his plain gray uniform, to Stuart’s impromptu headquarters under the pines, where, beside a great fire, and without other covering than his army-blanket, the commander of the cavalry had slept since midnight.

As Lee approached, Stuart came forward, and Lee said, admiringly, “What a hardy soldier!”

They consulted, Stuart walking back with General Lee, and receiving his orders.  He then promptly mounted, and hastened to the front, where, taking command of his cavalry, he formed it in front of the advancing enemy, and with artillery and dismounted sharp-shooters, offered every possible impediment to their advance.

General Meade made the passage of the Rapidan without difficulty; and, as his expedition was unencumbered with wagons, advanced rapidly.  The only serious obstruction to his march was made by Johnson’s division of Ewell’s corps, which had been thrown out beyond the run, toward the river.  Upon this force the Federal Third Corps, under General French, suddenly blundered, by taking the wrong road, it is said, and an active engagement followed, which resulted in favor of the Southerners.  The verdict of Lee’s troops afterward was, that the enemy fought badly; but General French probably desired nothing better than to shake off this hornets’-nest into which he had stumbled, and to reach, in the time prescribed by General Meade, the point of Federal concentration near Robertson’s Tavern.

Toward that point the Northern forces now converged from the various crossings of the river; and Stuart continued to reconnoitre and feel them along the entire front, fighting obstinately, and falling back only when compelled to do so.  Every step was thus contested with sharp-shooters and the Horse-Artillery, from far below to above New-Hope Church.  The Federal infantry, however, continued steadily to press forward, forcing back the cavalry, and on the 27th General Meade was in face of Mine Run.