On this occasion it was no false alarm. Information had just been brought in breathless haste from the town, that several cadets had been assaulted and beaten by Unionists, and then carried off under arrest. The report spread immediately throughout the corps, those in front repeating it to those behind, so that it was known by every cadet before he had reached the front of barracks. Therefore no explanation was needed; and certain it is that no persuasion was required. Right or wrong, every cadet was actuated by the same impulse—eagerness and impatience for the rescue.
The cadet battalion was composed of four companies. But on that afternoon, owing to the absence of some of the ranking cadet officers, and the failure of any of those present to assume the responsibility, no orders were given, and no attention was paid to company organization. On the contrary, the cadets, as fast as they came up, took their places in ranks without command, and moved off toward the town without a leader. The fact is (and the admission is made with some feeling of mortification even to-day), the movement of the cadets, when they first started off, was very unlike that of a column of disciplined soldiers. It might have been expected otherwise of a body of intelligent young men, educated and trained at such a military school. But if there was wanting the coolness of veterans, there was an abundance of determination and dash. If there was an absence of order and plan, it must be remembered that there was no time for deliberation, but that hot-headed, impetuous youth were unexpectedly called on to rescue their comrades from the violence of an infuriated political mob.
To the courthouse, near the centre of the town, it was about eight hundred yards. It could be reached by two lines of march—the upper, or principal route, passing the College and Grace Church; the lower route leading by a broad pathway diagonally across the front slope of the Institute hill, down into the Valley turnpike below, and thence up Main street by Governor Letcher's house and Craft's Hotel. The former route was the one taken on anniversary parades, the latter was the more direct.
Main street slopes gradually downward nearly from its western
