Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

November 12— This morning we went on picket one mile below Linden. Our post is in the edge of Fauquier County and on the summit of the Blue Ridge right in Manassas Gap. The general aspect of the locality and country here on the mountain top is wildly grand and picturesque. Lofty peaks here and there lift their crests toward the clouds and bathe their breezy heights in the rosy tints of morning while yet the dusky breaking shadows of night still linger in the valley below. The Manassas Gap Railroad creeps in serpentine style around the mountain hills for a few miles along the summit, then plunges windingly down the western slope of the Ridge to the bright murmuring waters of the Shenandoah. We had a regular mountain storm last night from the south, with a little rain mixed in. It howled over the mountain top and swept fiercely around the wooded peaks with a force and velocity hardly ever assumed in the low-lying valleys. It gave us a fair specimen of how the storm king travels in its royal department when it roams untrammeled through the boundless realms of its native home.