The month of July, 1861, found me with my little boys at "The Oaks"—the residence of Dr. Izard Bacon Rice, in Charlotte County, seventy miles from Richmond, and miles away from the nearest railroad depot. There I might have enjoyed a peaceful summer with my kind host—a fine type of a Christian gentleman, sometime an Old-Line Whig and fierce union man, now an ardent advocate of states\' rights, and a stanch supporter of the New Confederac............