with so much of the romance of the war, and whose gentle and enthusiastic courage and knightly bearing had called to mind the recollections of chivalry and adorned Virginia with a new chaplet of fame, had, on the 5th of June, fallen in a skirmish near Harrisburg.

"The last time I saw Ashby," writes a noble comrade in, arms, Colonel Bradley T. Johnson of the Maryland Line, “he was riding at the head of the column with General Ewell-his black face in a blaze of enthusiasm. Every feature beamed with the joy of the soldier. He was gesticulating and point-. ing out the country and positions to General Ewell. I could imagine what he was saying by the motions of his right arm. I pointed him out to my Adjutant. 'Look at Ashby; see how he is enjoying himself.'

A few hours later and the brave Virginian, so full of life, was a corpse. Our men had fallen upon a body of the enemy concealed in a piece of woods and under the cover of a fence. Ashby was on the right of the 58th Virginia. He implored the men to stop their fire, which was ineffectual, and to charge the enemy. They were too much excited to heed him, and turning towards the enemy he waved his hand-" Virginians, charge!" In a second his horse fell. He was on his feet in an instant. "Men," he cried, "cease firing-charge, for God's sake, charge!" The next instant he fell dead-not twenty yards from the concealed marksman who had killed him.

To the sketch we have briefly given of this campaign, it is just to add one word of reflection. It had been frequently and very unwarrantably asserted that the people of what was once the garden spot of the South, the Shenandoah Valley, were favourably inclined to the Union cause, and that many of them had shown a very decided spirit of disloyalty to the Confederate authority. The best refutation of this slander is to be found in the enemy's own accounts of his experiences in that region.

The fact is, that the people of this Valley had 'suffered to a most extraordinary degree the fiery trials and ravages of war.

Their country had been bandied about from the possession of the Confederates to that of the Yankees, and then back again, until it had been stripped of everything by needy friends on the one side, and unscrupulous invaders on the other. Some portions of the country were actually overrun by three armies in two weeks. In such circumstances there were, no doubt, expressions of discontent, which had been hastily misinterpreted as disloyal demonstrations; but, despite these, there is just reason to believe that a spirit of patriotism and integrity abided in the Valley of Virginia, and that it had been maintained under trials and chastisements much greater than those which had befallen other parts of the Confederacy.

MEMOIR OF TURNER ASHBY.

The writer had proposed a record in another and more extensive form of the principal events of the life of Turner Ashby; but the disappointment of assistance to sources of information from persons who had represented themselves as the friends of the deceased, and from whom the writer had reason to expect willing and warm co-operation, has compelled him to defer the execution of his original and cherished purpose of giving to the public a worthy biography of one whose name is a source of immortal pride to the South, and an enduring ornament to the chivalry of Virginia. But the few incidents roughly thrown together here may have a certain interest. They give the key to the character of one of the most remarkable men of the war; they afford an example to be emulated by our soldiers; they represent a type of courage peculiarly Southern in its aspects; and they add an unfading leaf to the chaplet of glory which Virginia has gathered on the blood-stained fields of the war.

It is not improper here to state the weight and significance given to the present revolution by the secession of Virginia. It takes time for revolutions to acquire their meaning and proper significance. That which was commenced by the Cotton States of the South, attained its growth, developed its purpose, and became instantly and thoroughly in earnest at the period when the second secessionary movement, inaugurated by Virginia, confronted the powers at Washington with its sublime spectacles.

Virginia did not secede in either the circumstance or sense in which the Cotton States had separated themselves from the Union. She did not leave the Union with delusive prospects of peace to comfort or sustain her. She. did not secede in the sense in which separation from the Union was the primary object of secession. Her act of secession was subordinate; she was called upon to oppose a practical and overt usurpation on the part of the.

Government at Washington in drawing its sword against the sovereignty of States and insisting on the right of coercion; to contest this her separation from the Union was necessary, and became a painful formality which could not be dispensed with.

A just and philosophical observation of events must find that in this second secessionary movement of the Southern States, the revolution was put on a basis infinitely higher and firmer in all its moral and constitutional aspects: that at this period it developed itself. acquired its proper significance, and was broadly translated into a war of liberty. The movement of Virginia had more than anything else added to the moral influences of the revolution and perfected its justification in the eyes of the world. It was plain that she had not scceded on an issue of policy, but one of distinct and practical con-titutiona} right, and that, too, in the face of a war which frowned upon her own. borders, and which necessarily was to make her soil the principal theatre of its ravages and woes. Her attachment to the Union had been proved by the most untiring and noble efforts to save it; her Legislature originated the Peace Conference, which assembled at Washington in February, 1861; her representatives in Congress sought in that body every mode of honourable pacification; her Convention sent delegates to Washington to persuade Mr. Lincoln to a pacific policy; and in every form of public assembly, every expedient of negotiation was essayed to save the Union. When these efforts at pacification, which Virginia had made with an unselfishness without parallel, and with a nobility of spirit that scorned any misrepresentation of her office, proved abortive, she did not hesitate to draw her sword in front of the enemy, and to devote all she possessed and loved and hoped for to the fortunes of the It is not necessary to recount at length the services of this ancient Commonwealth in the war for Southern independence. She furnished nearly all of the arms, ammunition and accoutrements that won the early battles; she gave the Confederate service, from her own armories and stores, seventyfive thousand rifles and muskets, nearly three hundred pieces of artillery, and a magnificent armory, containing all the machinery necessary for manufacturing arms on a large scale; and on every occasion she replied to the call for troops, until she drained her arms-bearing population to the dregs.

war.

It is a circumstance of most honourable remark, that such has been the conduct of Virginia in this war, that even from the base and vindictive enemy tributes have been forced to the devoted courage and heroic qualities of her Bons. The following extraordinary tribute from the Washington Republican, the organ of ab lition at the Yankee capital, is a compliment more expressive than anything a Virginian could say for his own State and its present generation of heroes:

"If there has been any decadence of the manly virtues in the Old Domin"ion, it is not because the present generation has proved itself either weak “or cowardly or unequal to the greatest emergencies.. No people, 'with so "few numbers, ever put into the field, and kept there so long, troops more “numerous, brave, or more efficient, or produced Generals of more merit, in "all the kinds and grades of military taleut. It is not a worn-out, effete race "which has produced Lee, Johnston, Jackson, Ashby and Stuart. It is not a "worn-out and effete race which, for two years, has defended its capital

against the approach of an enemy close upon their borders, and' outnum• bering them thirty to one. It is not a worn cut and effete race which has preserved substantial popular unity under all the straits and pressure and "sacrifics of this unprecedented war. Let history,' as was said of another race, which records their unhappy fate as a people, do justice to their "rude virtues as men.' They are fighting madly in a bad cause, but they "are fihting bravely. They have few cowards and no traitors. The hardships of war are endured without a murmur by all classes, and the dangers "of war without flinching, by the newest conscripts: while their gentry, the “offshoot of their popular social system, have thrown themselves into the camp and field with 'all the dash and high spirit of the European noblesse of "the middle ages, risking, without apparent concern, upon a desperate adventure, ill that men value; and after a generation of peace and repose "and security, which had not emasculated them, presenting to their enemies “a trained and intrepid front, as of men born and bred to war."

What has been said here of Virginia and her characteristics in the present revolution, is the natural and just preface to what we have to say of the man wito, more than any one else in this war, illustrated the chivalry of the Commonwealth and the virtues of her gentry. Turner Ashby was a thorough Virginian. He was an ardent lover of the old Union. He was brought up in that conservative and respectable school of politics which hesitated long to sacrifice a Union which had been, in part, constructed by the most illustrious of the sous of Virginia; which had conferred many honours upon her; and which was the subject of many hopes in the future. But when it became evident that the life of the Union was gone, and the sword was drawn for constitutional liberty, the spirit of Virginia was again illustrated by Ashby, who showed a devotion in the field even more admirable than the virtue of political principles.

Turner Ashby was the second son of the late Colonel Turner Ashby, of "Rse Bank," Fauquier county, and Dorothea F. Green, the daughter of the late James Green, Sr., of Rappahannock county. Colonel Ashby, at his death, left three sons and three daughters the eldest of whom did not exceed twelve' years of age at the time of his death-to the sole care of their devoted mother. To her excellent sense, generous disposition and noble character, the Confederacy is indebted for two as noble and gallant men as have won soldiers' graves during this war..

The father of Turner Ashby was the sixth son, that reached manhood, of Captain Jack Ashby, a man of mark in the day in which he lived, and of whom many anecdotes are still extant, illustrative of his remarkable character. One of these belongs to the colonial times, and is interesting:

"When the news of the disastrous defeat and death of General Braddock "reached Fort Loudoun, (now Winchester, Virginia,) John Ashby was there, "and his celebrity as a horseman induced the British Commandant of the "post to secure his services as bearer of dispatches to the Vice-Royal Gov"ernor at Williamsburg. Ashby at once proceeded on his mission, and in an "incredibly short time presented himself before the commander at Fort Loudoun. This official, of choleric disposition, upon the appearance of Ashby, broke out in severe reproach for his delay in proceeding on his mission, and

was finally struck' dumb with astonishment, at the presentation of the Gov"ernor's rèply to the dispatch! The ride is said to have been accomplished "in the shortest possible time, and the fact is certified in the records of Fred"erick county court."

Upon the breaking out of the Revolution of 1776, Captain Jack Ashby raised a company in. his neighbourhood in the upper part of Fauquier. It was attached to the third Virginia regiment, under command of General Marshall. He was in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and several other of the most desperately contested fields of the Revolution. From exposure and hardships endured upon the frontiers of Canada, he contracted disease, from which he was never entirely relieved to the day of his death. He continued in the service during the whole period of the Revolution, and after the proclamation of peace, quietly settled upon his beautiful farm not far from Markham Station, upon the Manassas Gap railroad. Four of his sons, John, Samuel, Nimrod and Thomson, served in the war of 1812.

The father of our hero died, as we have stated, leaving a family of children of tender age. Young Turner was put to school, where it does not appear that he showed any peculiar trait in his studies; but he was remarkable among his young associates for his sedate manners; his grave regard for truth, and his appreciation of points of honour.

Turner Ashby never had the advantages of a college education, but he had a good, healthy mind; he was an attentive student of human nature, and a convenient listener where information was to be gained; and he possessed those ordinary stores of knowledge which may be acquired by a moderate use of books and an attentive intercourse with men. He was engaged for some time in merchandise at Markham's Depot. The old homestead of his father still stands near there, and not far from the homestead of the Marshalls. The tastes of Ashby were too domestic for politics. He was at one time Whig candidate for the Virginia Legislature from Fauquier, but was defeated by a small majority. This was his only public appearance in any political strife, and but little else is known of him as a politician beyond his ardent admiration of and personal attachment to Robert E. Scott.

Ashby's attachment to domestic life was enlivened by an extreme fondness for manly pastimes. He was a horseman from very childhood, and had the greatest passion for equestrian exercises. His delight in physical excitements was singularly pure and virtuous; he shunned the dissipations fashionable among young men; and while so sober and steady in his habits as sometimes to be a joke among his companions, yet he was the foremost in all innocent sports, the first to get up tournaments and fox chases, and almost always the successful competitor in all manly games.. His favorite horse was trained for tournaments and fox-hunting, and it is said to have been a common pastime of Ashby to take him into the meadow and jump him over hay cocks and stone fences. Some of his feats of horsemanship are memorable, and are constantly related in his neighbourhood. While at the Fauquier Springs, which he frequently visited, and where he got up tournaments after the fashion of the ancient chivalry, he once displayed his horsemanship by riding into the ball-room, up and down steep flights of steps, to the mingled terrour and admiration of the guests. No cavalier was more graceful. The reserve of