A manuscript diary of Confederate States Army lieutenant Alfred Moore, written in 1864-65 as a member of Co. I, 11th Virginia Cavalry. The Moore diary (16 cm.) is a volume of the familiar daily calendar type, bound in blue oilcloth and bearing the printed title Pocket Diary for 1864. An inscription on the back pastedown reads "A. Moore Lt / Co I 11th Va Cav / Dec 31st 1864". Though no other owner's inscription is present, scattered entries in a second hand indicate that the volume was originally the property of a Federal trooper, an unidentified member of the 1st D.C. Cavalry (US). The first of the original owner's entries is for 29 February 1864: "6 Companies apparently G, H, I, K, L, and M of the 1st D C Cavelry Embarked from Agusta This morning for Washington" (these companies were organized in Maine in February 1864; hence the departure from Augusta). The only other entries in the Union trooper's hand are for 11 July and 30 July to 5 August 1864, mostly describing his "first expedition" south of the James River, into Prince George County, Virginia, behind the Federal lines besieging Petersburg. On 16 September elements of the 1st D.C. Cavalry were encamped at Sycamore Church and Cocke's Mill when they were surprised by a force of Confederate cavalry under Wade Hampton, whose goal was the capture of a herd of beef cattle stockaded at nearby Coggins Point. Most of the members of the 1st D.C. Cavalry fell prisoner and were escorted back to Petersburg by Moore's 11th Virginia, along with nearly 2500 head of cattle. It was during this episode, doubtless, that the diary changed hands, though we cannot know precisely how. Lt. Moore's first entry is for 12 September, but it seems clear that his account of the famous "Cattle Raid" was written retrospectively, after the Confederates' return to their old camp near Ream's Station on the afternoon of the 17th.