Our cavalry.
It is gratifying in the extreme to learn, from the dispatches of Gen. Lee to the President, alluded to in another column, that our cavalry under Gen. Stuart still maintains its ancient reputation. For several days, so reads the report, they have met the enemy daily, and on all occasions have been victorious. This is so much the more gratifying than we had been led to believe from the reports of passengers on the cars, that the sceptre was departing from us. There certainly would be nothing more mortifying to the Southern man than to see that arm of the service in which his countrymen have always been supposed to excel, represented by a race of combatants who were not able even to cope with the Yankees.Nevertheless that the Yankees are straining every nerve to make discipline supply the place for natural aptitude for the cavalry service is too clear to admit of dispute. The time has been, and that not very long ago, when they would not have dared to project and execute such an excursion as that undertaken and successfully accomplished by Stoneman and Kilpatrick — when, indeed, they could not have found the men, unless they had gone to the West for them, to carry it out. There are few riders in the Yankee States, or the Middle States. They all believe in Northern trotters and carriages of some description. Yet seeing the enormous advantage of having a large body of cavalry always on hand to conduct the war on the brutal plan which they seem to have determined upon, with characteristic industry they set to work and improvised one. Their horsemen are by no means equal to ours, but they are better equipped, and ride better horses. They are, therefore, so much the nearer on an equality with us, and though they cannot contend with us, man for man, in the field, they are able to work us infinite mischief. it is, however, gratifying to see that we still retain our ancient prestige.
