May 24 — This morning we started from camp at three o’clock. It was very dark, but we passed on through the darkness and arrived at Front Royal by sunrise. Front Royal is situated near the western base of the Blue Ridge, one mile from the Shenandoah River, twenty-five miles below Luray, and eighteen miles from Winchester. Yesterday evening we heard cannon in the direction of Front Royal. We learned this morning that it was a Yankee battery shelling our cavalry near town.
This morning I saw about four hundred prisoners that were captured yesterday.
Captain Sheetz of Ashby’s Cavalry, a gallant, daring, and brave officer, was killed at Waterlick, a station between Front Royal and Strasburg on the Manassas railroad. I saw his body this morning in Front Royal.
We crossed the Shenandoah near Front Royal on a bridge that the Yankees built. They attempted to burn it yesterday, but our men pressed them so hard they failed to destroy it.
We went in pursuit of the enemy on the Winchester pike some six or seven miles, then returned to the Shenandoah River without seeing any Yanks. Then we were ordered to Middletown, on the Valley pike, at which place we arrived about two o’clock this afternoon. Before we got in sight of the pike we saw a line of Yankee skirmishers. We fired on them, and at the first fire they ran away like wild men. When we came in sight of the pike we saw heavy clouds of dust rising all along the road, which we soon learned was caused by a hastily retreating army — with cavalry, artillery, infantry, wagons, ambulances, and sutler shops all in one mixed-up caravan—fleeing toward Winchester like clouds scudding before a driving storm. At a half mile range we opened on the flying mixture with all four of our guns, and as our shells plowed gap after gap through the serried column it caused consternation confounded, and vastly increased the speed of the hurrying mixed fugitive mass. When we first attacked the enemy at Middletown we had a company of the Eighth Louisiana Regiment of infantry, in which were some of the Mississippi Tigers, as a support, and sharpshooters for our battery. When we opened fire a Yankee captain of cavalry left the fleeing fugitives, jumped his horse across a fence, flourished his saber, and beckoned to his comrades to follow him, but his mixedup troop kept on down the pike as if they were deeply impressed with the idea that the safest and surest way to save their country’s flag was to run away with it.
The Tigers saw the Yankee captain when he jumped into the field. They opened fire on him with their long-ranged rifles. I saw him fall soon after, and heard some of the Tigers say, “That will do him. Fire at the others in the road.”
It was fun for the Tigers to fight cavalry, but it looked a shame to shoot down the lone Yankee captain as he was vainly trying to rally his men, to defend the running remnant of Banks’ army, but alas! such is war. Immediately after the last Yanks passed Middletown we double-quicked to the pike and pursued them, firing on them from every available position until we arrived at Newtown, which is five miles below Middletown. In the pursuit I saw abandoned baggage wagons, commissary wagons, wagons laden with medical stores, sutler goods, and all sorts of army equipments strewn along the track of the hastily retiring enemy.
Just above Newtown in a field on the west side of the pike I saw where a whole regiment shelled off their knapsacks and left them lying in a well-formed line and apparently in good order. A little below Middletown and about six hundred yards to our left, in the edge of a woods, we saw a company of Yankee cavalry under a Confederate flag. They were behaving themselves nicely, and no doubt making observations and taking bearings. As quickly as Captain Chew convinced himself that they were Yanks he ordered me to unlimber and fire on them. I did so, and that was my maiden shot, my first effort at gunnery, and a lovely maiden it was. The shell I fired was way too high and went at least half a mile beyond the Yanks, and exploded, but it surely made the Yanks “git.”
It was drawing toward sunset when we arrived at Newtown, and as our horses had not been fed since three o’clock this morning we halted in town and fed them in the street. But before our horses were done eating some Yankee infantry rallied just below town, threw out a line of sharpshooters, and advanced on us. We fired on them with one piece from the street, but we had no support and their sharpshooters were creeping up along fences and behind sheds and houses, which rendered our surroundings a little dangerous and our situation hazardous and unhealthy, as we had no support of either cavalry or infantry. Our Tiger support had not come up yet, and I do not know just where our cavalry was at that time. All the events that transpired in the last five hours came in quick succession.
When we found that we could not hold our position in town against the advancing sharpshooters, we retired to a hill just south of town, went in position and fired on the line of sharpshooters, which was still advancing and firing on us. They had long-range rifles, and made it a little too sickly for us on the first hill, and as we limbered up and started away I saw a sharpshooter in the middle of the street drop on one knee and shoot at us at a distance of nearly half a mile. When he fired I heard the bullet whiz close by my head. It struck the lead driver to my team and went clear through him, from back to breast, but it did not kill. We put him in a farmhouse near by.
Just after we left our position Jackson’s infantry came up and drove the enemy back in a sort of double-quick style. About a mile below Newtown the Yanks attempted to rally for the special purpose of defending some commissary wagons that were disabled, but Jackson’s men pressed them so hard in a skirmish that sounded very much like a young battle that the enemy hastily turned the wagons over to the yelling Rebels and fell back toward Winchester. This last skirmish of the day occurred after dark. After Jackson’s infantry came up and passed to the front and while our battery was awaiting orders, a few of us got permission from the proper authority to go on a twenty-minute pilfering raid among the debris and spoils scattered all along the road of Banks’ routed army.
The first prize we struck was a wagon standing in a wheat field, loaded with large square boxes full of military clothing. The first box we opened was full of dark blue frock coats with brass eagle military buttons.
I got four coats, but they were too blue for a Rebel to wear on the field, and too bulky to carry, so after all I had nothing but a blue elephant on hand. I saw plenty of knapsacks strewn over the fields and road. However, the most of them had already passed through the raking process thoroughly applied by Confed. snatchers. After a real ragged Rebel rifles a knapsack I would not give a cancelled postage stamp for what he leaves.
Nearly all the wreckage was strewn on the west side of the pike, yet we found one wagon on the east side that was standing with the fore wheels in a deep impassable ditch. When we got to it a lone cavalryman was standing in the hind part of the wagon, pounding on a barrel head with a stone. Our first conclusions were that the barrels contained pickled pork, and awaited patiently the cavalryman’s successful assault in gaining access to its contents, as a good chunk of pickled pork would have been a very acceptable and highly appreciated prize, for my external haversack was entirely empty and the internal one almost in the same fix. It did not take long for our gallant beating cavalryman to “strike ile.” When I heard the barrel head splash into something liquid the delighted cavalryman exclaimed, “Whisky, by George!” and I saw him bow down a willing worshiper at this lowly shrine of Bacchus, and he sampled without cup or canteen the mirth-inspiring contents of a full barrel. There were ten barrels in the wagon. I did not want any to be joyful on an empty stomach, I had no canteen, my twenty minutes’ leave of absence had about expired, and the rosy glow of fading twilight was fast changing into the sable shades of night, so I struck a bee-line for the battery, with nothing but four blue coats that I had no use for.
At the lower end of Middletown I saw a dead Yankee lying against a stone fence, with a splendid-looking watch chain hanging from his vest pocket. From its appearance I am almost confident it was gold. I had a good opportunity to snatch it, but there was a kind of restraining superstition playing through my mind, which seemed to whisper dogmatically that it is unalloyed sacrilege to rob the dead. I heeded the silent monitor and left the chain and Yankee untouched. I am confident that there was a watch in the vest pocket. We are camped for the night at Newtown.
