His wife was weeping in her private tent, and I saw that for the first time in my acquaintance with him he was downcast.  He was one of the bravest of men, yet now a foreboding of evil oppressed him.  The result justified it, for he was captured during the raid, and never fully rallied after the war from the physical depression caused by his captivity.  He told me that on the morrow General Kilpatrick would lead four thousand picked cavalry men in a raid on Richmond, having as its special object the release of our prisoners.  I rode to the headquarters of the general, who confirmed the tidings, adding, “You need not go.  Non-combatants are not expected to go.”

It was most fortunate that my wife had not come.  I had recently been appointed chaplain of Hampton Hospital, Virginia, by President Lincoln, and was daily expecting my confirmation by the Senate.  I had fully expected to give my wife a glimpse of army life in the field, and then to enter on my new duties.  To go or not to go was a question with me that night.  The raid certainly offered a sharp contrast with the anticipated week’s outing with my bride.  I did not possess by nature that kind of courage which is indifferent to danger; and life had never offered more attractions than at that time.  I have since enjoyed Southern hospitality abundantly, and hope to again, but then its prospect was not alluring.  Before morning, however, I reached the decision that I would go, and during the Sunday forenoon held my last service in the regiment.  I had disposed of my horse, and so had to take a sorry beast at the last moment, the only one I could obtain.

In the dusk of Sunday evening four thousand men were masked in the woods on the banks of the Rapidan.  Our scouts opened the way by wading the stream and pouncing upon the unsuspecting picket of twenty Confederates opposite.  Then away we went across a cold, rapid river, marching all that night through the dim woods and openings in a country that was emphatically the enemy’s.  Lee’s entire army was on our right, the main Confederate cavalry force on our left.  The strength of our column and its objective point could not remain long unknown.

In some unimportant ways I acted as aid for Kilpatrick.  A few hundred yards in advance of the main body rode a vanguard of two hundred men, thrown forward to warn us should we strike any considerable number of the enemy’s cavalry.  As is ever the case, the horses of a small force will walk away from a much larger body, and it was necessary from time to time to send word to the vanguard, ordering it to “slow up.”  This order was occasionally intrusted to me.  I was to gallop over the interval between the two columns, then draw up by the roadside and sit motionless on my horse till the general with his staff came up.  The slightest irregularity of action would bring a shot from our own men, while the prospect of an interview with the Johnnies while thus isolated was always good.  I saw one of our officers shot that night.  He had ridden carelessly into the woods, and rode out again just before the head of the column, without instantly accounting for himself.  As it was of vital importance to keep the movement secret as long as possible, the poor fellow was silenced in sad error as to his identity.