A BALL INTERRUPTED.

Otago Witness, Issue 801, 6 April 1867, Page 6

A BALL INTERRUPTED.

Major Yon Borcke, a volunteer in the army of Virginia, during the Confederate War in America, published a number of papers in Blackwood, in which he related many exploits that he had witnessed. He tells how, in several important battles, and in numberless small fights, Virginia and Maryland were protected from the attacks of the Federals (luring the summer and autumn of 1862. The up and down, daredevil way in which the fighting was carried on is illustrated by this description of a ball given at Urbana, and its unusual interruption and conclusion : —

Louder and louder sounded the instruments, quicker and quicker moved the dancers, and the whole crowded room, with its many exceedingly pretty women and its martial figures of officers in their beat uniforms, presented a most striking spectacle of gaiety and enjoyment. Suddenly enters an orderly covered with dust, and reports in a loud voice to General Stuart that the enemy have surprised and driven in our pickets and are attacking our camp in force, while at the same moment the sound of shots in rapid succession is distinctly borne to us on the midnight air.. The excitement which followed this announcement I cannot undertake to describe. The music crashed into a concordia discors. The officers rushed to their weapons and called for their horses, panic-stricken fathers and mothers endeavored in a frantic way to collect around them their bewildered children, while the young ladies ran to and fro in most admired despair. Gen. Stuart maintained his accustomed coolness and composure. Our horses were immediately saddled, and in less than five minutes we were in rapid gallop to the front. Upon arriving there we found, as is usually the case in such sudden alarms, that things were by no means so desperate as they had been represented.

Colonel Baker, with the splendid Ist North Carolina Regiment, had arrested the bold forward movement of the Yankees. Pelham,with his guns in favorable position, was soon pouring a rapid fire upon their columns. The other regiments of the command were speedily in the saddle. The line of battle having been formed, Stuart gave the order for a general attack, and with great rage and fury we precipitated ourselves upon the foe, who paid, with the loss of many kilted and wounded, and a considerable number of prisoners, for their unmannerly interruption of our social amusement. They were pursued in their headlong flight for several miles by the Ist North Carolina, until, a little past midnight, they got quite out of reach, and all was quiet again.

It was about one o'clock in the morning when we got back to the Academy, where we found a great many of our fair guests still assembled, awaiting with breathless anxiety the result of the conflict. As the musicians had never dispersed, General Stuart ordered them again to strike up ; many of our pretty fugitives were brought back by young officers who eagerly volunteered for that commendable purpose ; and as everybody was determined that the Yankees should not boast of having completely broken up our partj-, the dancing was resumed in less then half an hour, and kept up till the first glimmer of dawn. At this time, the ambulances laden with the wounded of last night's engagement were slowly approaching: the Academy, a3 the only building at Urbana that was at all suited to the purposes of an hospital. Of course the music was immediately stopped and the dancing ceased, and our lovely partners in the quadri le at once became " ministering angels " to the sufferers.

Captain Blackford and I went down with our New York Rebel to an ambulance in which there was a poor fellow fearfully wounded by a ball in the shoulder. His uuiform jacket was quite saturated with blood, and the tender white hands of our charming friend had just become fairly employed in the compassionate office of stanching the wound and cooling the inflammation with applications of cold water, when her strength brjke down and she fainted away. When after a few minutes she had recovered, we did our best to persuade her to go home ; but with a courage equalling that of the warrior on the field of battle, she replied, " I must first do my duty." This she did bravely and tenderly, until the wounded man, greatly relieved by her ministration, expressed his gratitude with tears streaming from his eyes, and begged her now to take care of herself. Blackford and I accompanied the noble

creature to the house of Mr C., and left her with the highest admiration for her tenderness -and fortitude.