Brigadiers Cheap — Chargers Costly
The news was transmitted to the Executive that a brigadier-general and his escort of cavalry had been “gobbled up,” the current and expressive term, by rebel raiders, near Fairfax Court-house, close enough to resound the echoes of the affray.
“I am sorry of the loss of the horses,” deplored the President. “I mean that I can make a brigadier-general any day—but those horses cost the government a hundred and twenty-five to fifty dollars a head!”