midnight
It was almost midnight , on January 2 , 1863 , and the impromptu party at the Ratcliffe home was breaking up . The guest of honor , General J. E. B. Stuart , felt that he was overstaying his welcome -- not at the Ratcliffe home , where everybody was soundly Confederate , but in Fairfax County , then occupied by the Union Army . About a week before , he had come raiding up from Culpepper with a strong force of cavalry , to spend a merry Christmas in northern Virginia and give the enemy a busy if somewhat less than happy New Year 's . He had shot up outposts , run off horses from remount stations , plundered supply depots , burned stores of forage ; now , before returning to the main Confederate Army , he had paused to visit his friend Laura Ratcliffe .