“DABNEY,” THE COLORED SCOUT.–

He was emphatically what the old Southern advertisements used to call a “smart, likely negro fellow;” and after he had left his secesh master, who lived on the south bank of the Rappahannock, above Fredericksburg, General Hooker found his minute and reliable knowledge of the country and the character of its inhabitants of great importance to him.
On one occasion, just before the battle of Chancellorsville, a scouting party had come in, who reported a certain locality entirely free of the enemy; they had talked with Mr D_____. a farmer, who said there were no Southerners anywhere near him, and had not been for several days. Dabney heard the report of the scouts, and warned the General not to believe a word of what they heard Mr. D—- say.

“You must take him just contraiwise from what he talks,” said Dabney. “If he says there are no rebs there, you may be sure there are plenty of them all about, and got their big guns all ready.”

But considerable faith was attached to what the scouts had reported, and a force was sent to feel in that neighborhood, and see what there might be there.

Dabney went at the head of the column as pilot, though all the time protesting that, instead of taking that man at his word, they should be prepared for the worst. Dabney was well mounted, and felt no little pride as he moved along, at the head of a powerful column, over roads which he had so often trod with the dejected air and clouded spirit of a slave.

“I know that man very well,” he kept saying, “He’s my ole mass’r, and he’s a man you have to take just contrary to what he says.”

Soon the head of the column approached the locality; and, sure enough, the rebels were there in force, and opened with a storm of grape and canister. The Union force soon got guns in position, and a brisk skirmish was going on, in the midst of which Dabney’s fine horse fell under him, pierced by a grape-shot. But he was not to be dismounted as easily as that, and while the fight was quite lively, and his old master was fully occupied with the stirring scene, Dabney slipped down to the river, swam across, went to the stables, and taking the finest horse there, mounted him, dashed down to the river, swam him across, and came back to the Union lines, all the time under fire, saying, as he rode up, “I told you you couldn’t depend on what that man said about the rebs not being there; but never mind, it has given me a chance to ‘fiscate a mighty fine horse.”

After that adventure, as he was finely mounted, and his knowledge of the inhabitants was shown to be reliable, he was constantly employed as a pilot to the scouting parties.

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