Jeb Stuart 06/12/1862

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http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jeb-stuart-rides-around-the-union-army

Lee dispatched Stuart, his dashing cavalry leader, and 1,200 troopers to investigate the position of McClellan's right flank. Stuart soon discovered that McClellan's right flank did not have any natural topographic features to protect it, so he continued to ride around the rest of the army in a bold display that exceeded Lee's orders. His troopers took prisoners and harassed Federal supply lines. They rode 100 miles, pursued by Union cavalry that was commanded, coincidentally, by Stuart's father-in-law, Philip St. George Cooke.

A small history on Jeb Stuart

http://www.civilwarhome.com/stuartbi.htm

At Chancellorsville he took over command of his friend Stonewall Jackson's Corps after that officer had been mortally wounded by his own men. Returning to the cavalry shortly after, he commanded the Southern horsemen in the largest cavalry engagement ever fought on the American continent, Brandy Station, on June 9, 1863.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/stuartyouth.htm

 

"Before I conclude I must express the deep solicitude I feel on your account. Just embarking in military life (a life which tests, perhaps more than any other, a young man's prudence and steadiness), at an immense distance from your friends, great responsibility rests upon your shoulders. It is true that you have, to start with, good morals fortified by religion, a good temper, and a good constitution, which if preserved will carry you through the trial safely. But the temptations of a camp to a young man of sanguine temperament, like yourself, are not to be trifled with or despised. I conjure you to be constantly on your guard, repelling and avoiding the slightest approach towards vice or immorality. You have to go through a fiery ordeal, but it is one through which many great and pious men have gone unscathed. But the greater portion have not escaped unscorched, and many have perished. Your military training at West Point will strengthen you greatly in the struggle. By it you have been taught the necessity of strict subordination to superiors, and of kind and conciliatory manners toward equals; and I trust that you will carry those lessons into practice now that you have exchanged the Academy for the camp."

       Words of wisdom are these; words which the young man laid close to his heart. No stain of vice or immorality was ever found upon him.