Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.

October 14 — Before daylight this morning we were waked up and marched to a field near Middletown; we remained there until night and then we moved back again to our old little square near General Sheridan’s headquarters.

The Yankee army here was reinforced to-day; I saw some of the infantry marching in from the direction of Winchester. Surely, General Sheridan has more than enough men now to clean up the whole Shenandoah Valley by civilized warfare, without again resorting to any further rapine or burning another mill or barn.

October 13 — Cold and windy to-day. I heard some cannonading this afternoon in the direction of the Rebels. A great many army wagons moved off toward Winchester to-day. This afternoon I saw General Sheridan leave his headquarters on a tour of inspection along his picket line. He is well mounted and keeps two fine horses.

From the florid flush that glows in his face I think he must be taking some powerful doses of some kind of drastic medicine, just for the stomach’s sake. However, the red rosy hue may be only nature’s true beacon light, displaying the grand signal of robust, perfect health.

Yesterday evening I heard two Irishmen quarrel until they got up to the fighting pitch, but they were- afraid to fight then, for fear it would round up in the guardhouse or end in doing double duty, consequently they made an appointment to meet at midnight and go through with the gratifying exercise of hammering each other without hindrance or foreign intervention until subjugation proclaimed peace and honor fully vindicated and satisfied. According to arrangement the combatants stepped into the arena at midnight, close to our lodging place; I was awake and a witness to the conflict. When they met I heard one of them say, “Faith and be Hivin, now we will knock it out!” and they commenced vigorous operations without skirmishing. They fought in the dark, so I did not see them, but I heard the heavy blows fall thick and fast for some little time, then all was still; the engagement was over, and I heard no more. The men that fought belonged to a Massachusetts regiment of infantry.

October 12 — We are still sojourning at General Sheridan’s headquarters, and under strict surveillance in the midst of an infantry camp. We are consigned to the limits of a little square patch out in an open field, without the least sign of shelter. So far our diet has been very simple. The quality of our rations is excellent, but the quantity is considerably below the danger line of dyspepsia. Uncle Sam, the dear generous old soul, is determined that we shall not suffer any pains or disagreeable uneasiness from indigestion or dyspepsia while we are under the kind and hospitable care of his faithful patriots. And our sleeping apartment is as airy as a mountain wind. We wrap our blankets around us and lie down to soothing slumber and pleasant dreams on the cold wet ground without the least shelter against storm or rain. General Sheridan burns a red light at his headquarters all night.

October 10 — Rations seem to be scarce in Uncle Sam’s domain, especially on his army front. We got no supper yesterday evening, and rations were so slim and slow this morning that I breakfasted on a little green pumpkin that I found in the field close to where I slept; I sliced it up and roasted the slices by the campfire. It was delicious and no mean filling for an empty stomach. This forenoon the Twenty-Second New York Cavalry turned us over into the care of the Third New Jersey Cavalry. Soon after the new guard took charge of us we were put on the move down Tom’s Brook to the Valley pike, then down the pike, through Strasburg, and this evening we are at General Sheridan’s headquarters, at Belle Grove, a large stone house in Frederick County, situated between Cedar Creek and Middletown, and a little distance west of the Valley pike. At Strasburg we were counted and turned over to a new guard, detailed from the First Regiment of Rhode Island Infantry, to march us to General Sheridan’s headquarters; then that guard turned us over to the Twenty-Sixth Massachusetts Infantry, doing guard duty around headquarters. We passed through a great many camps to-day along Tom’s Brook and the Valley pike, between Tom’s Brook and Fisher’s Hill. The whole country seems to be full of infantry.

October 9 — This evening I am a prisoner of war, and I could curse a blue streak on several legitimate routes if I thought that there was the least speck of rectitude, virtue, or efficacy in the low-grade performance of swearing. First, the way our battery was managed and maneuvered on the field to-day was a censurable reflection on good judgment and a burlesque on practical military tactics. Second, the shameful way that our cavalry, especially that portion that tried to operate on the North Mountain road, fought, bled, and died a-running rearward was enough to make its old commander, General J. E. B. Stuart, weep in his grave. Ring down the curtain on that scene, for the cavalry played a regular exeunt act.

This was a gloomy October day all over. Rough fragments of dark wintry clouds came rolling over the North Mountain and scudded swiftly across the sky, now and then scattering a few snowflakes that were whirled through the crisp air by a chilly west wind. Before sunrise this morning we were ordered to the front, and we did not proceed far from our bivouac before we saw the fields blued all over with hosts of Yankee horsemen in full battle array in line and column, with a battery or two in position, all ready for business. We moved down the North Mountain road to within about a mile of the enemy’s position and put our two rifled guns in position on the face of a hill that sloped toward the Yankee line. It is true the hill we were on was considerably higher and commanded the enemy’s position, but it was a mistake to put our guns in battery on the slope facing the enemy’s battery and line, for we were at once fully exposed to a raking fire of their guns all the time and all over.

However, we opened a rapid fire on their battery, and they responded to our fire in the same kind of a business manner and their shell and shrapnel and solid shot raked and plowed up the sod all around our guns. One of my shell exploded right over one of their guns and silenced it for a while, but eventually the fire of their battery grew too hot for us, and a large body of cavalry was advancing on our position on both flanks, with but a few scattering cavalrymen on our side to oppose them, consequently we were forced to retire from our first and dangerously exposed position with the insignificant loss of one mule, killed by a shell. And we left our position not a moment too soon, for it was not long after we retired until I saw the blue horsemen swarm all over the hill that we had just left. We fell back to the next hill, put our guns in battery and opened fire again on the oncoming host in our front, but we did not hold our second position long, as the Yankee cavalry pressed us to the yielding point soon after we opened fire, and our cavalry rendered us very little support, as they were scattered all over the hills and fields and preparing to make a dash to the rear, which they accomplished in fine style just before our guns were captured.

The third position from which we fired we did not hold more than thirty minutes before we were driven from it, and after we had limbered up someone cried, “Boys, save yourselves!” I suppose it was our first lieutenant who called out, but he was too late; the Yankee cavalry on our left flank charged, and five men of the Eighth New York Cavalry dashed on us with leveled pistols, and brought my gun to a halt with me on the limber chest, and in less than five minutes there were a thousand Yankee cavalrymen, with drawn sabers, around us. One of the cavalrymen fired at me after I halted, and although he was only about ten feet from me when he fired he was so awfully excited that he shot wildly and missed me. He then rushed on me with drawn saber, lifted high and ready to strike, but something restrained him, and my life was saved. After the excitement died away a little the man that shot at me came to me and asked me to excuse him for shooting at me after I had halted. He acknowledged that he was greatly excited and hardly knew what he was doing, as that was the first piece of artillery he ever helped to capture. After making such an honest and open confession voluntarily, there was nothing left for me to do but excuse him, which I did with the humble grace of a subjugated captive.

Sometimes when a man is surrounded by gleaming sabers and in the midst of cracking pistols, and in the very presence of immediate and impending danger, his imagination can be wrought to such a pitch as to seem to move in the very trail of reality,— and is the same stuff that dreams are made of,— for when my captor shot at me and then rushed at me with his saber I thought that I felt the cold steel crashing through my brain, and the world had commenced to fade away. To show how badly and carelessly affairs pertaining to the movements of our battery were managed, I saw two regiments of Yankee cavalry about six hundred yards to our right pass us going to our rear just after I was ordered to cease firing. I did not know then they were Yanks, but I found it out subsequently, and the person that had command of our battery ought to have known, and not have held us in position until we were actually surrounded. When the regiments passed I thought they were our cavalry falling back, but after I was captured I soon found out who they were — they were all dressed in blue, and no Confederate battle-flag floated over them. About fifteen minutes after we were captured the Yankee horse artillery came up the North Mountain road, in a quick walk in pursuit of our flying cavalry. A sergeant of their battery came dashing into the field where we were with our captured gun, and demanded, in an authoritative manner and tone, “Are there any chief of pieces captured? We intend to make you fight on our side.” I thought perhaps he might have meant gunners, and I lied then and there, and told him No, that our non-commissioned officers were all well mounted and made their escape. But he made us fall in column with their horse artillery, and we marched with it about a mile and a half; but our cavalry disappeared so fast that fortunately we were not called upon to do any firing for Uncle Sam.

My gun was captured about two hundred yards east of the North Mountain road, in a large field about six miles north of Woodstock. I fired seventy-five rounds this morning before the Yanks captured my gun, and I was captured just a little before noon.

When the Yankee column halted, waiting for developments and orders, a gunner of their horse artillery came to me and told me that one of our shell exploded right at his gun this morning, and wounded four of his cannoneers, and said he, “I did not know what to do with you; my fuse was too long and too short, so I fired a solid shot.” He did not know that he was talking to the gunner that fired the shell that played thunder with his squad, and he never will know; but the shell referred to was the very one that I fired this morning and saw explode near one of the enemy’s guns. I knew that my shell did some good ugly work among the blue gentlemen, from the fact that after their piece opened fire again I saw the solid shot digging ditches around us. We had two rifled guns captured, with nearly all their belongings, all we had in the fight, but most of the cannoneers were well mounted and made their escape.

About middle of the afternoon that part of the Yankee cavalry that had us at anchor fell back to where Tom’s Brook crosses the North Mountain road, which point was rather a base of their day’s operations.

There we bade farewell to the horse artillery and were moved down to a point back of Strasburg, under the surveillance of a heavy guard from the Twenty-Second New York Cavalry; in fact, our guard looked almost like a whole regiment. They double-quicked us about half of the way. I have no idea what their object was in such a proceeding, unless it was to try and test the endurance of a Rebel’s wind. For two or three miles we passed through camp after camp of soldiers, some of which looked very much like infantry camps. It was way after night when we stopped to camp, or rather when our Yankee friends stopped and allowed us the same privilege.

After we had retired to our blanket beds and were about ready to enter the dreamland gates a Yankee marauder who had been out and robbed a bee stand came rushing into camp and reported that some of Mosby’s guerrillas were in the neighborhood and got after him in his bee hunt. As quick as the alarm reached camp two or three bugles commenced sounding Boots and Saddles, which hurriedly roused the whole camp, Yankees and Rebels, and we were rushed back in trotting style to Tom’s Brook, from where we had started. These Yankee cavalrymen seem to be most awfully afraid of Mosby or any of his men. It is now past midnight and we have at last settled down for the night, in a freshly sown wheat-field on the North Mountain road, near Tom’s Brook. We have marched about sixteen miles since we were captured. There are about a hundred prisoners in our bunch, mostly cavalrymen. Soon after I was captured I saw General Custer, who is a very plain, common-looking man. He was dressed in a plain brown suit entirely void of ornament, and had on a broad-rimmed slouch hat. He has not had his hair cut for some time, for it hangs down on his shoulders, which gives him the general appearance of an old hunter more than the resemblance of a great soldier and general.

October 8 — We renewed our march this morning, in pursuit of the Yankee barn-burners, down the Valley. We struck the North Mountain road at Cross Roads Church, about eight miles northwest of Mount Jackson. We then moved down on the North Mountain road the remainder of the day, and passed Columbia Furnace on Stony Creek, six miles northwest of Edenburg; the furnace and some other buildings were burning when we passed. We heard some artillery firing this evening, in front. About to-morrow we will have some work on hand for our battery. We are camped tonight on the North Mountain road some five or six miles north of Woodstock.

General Sheridan is the boss burner of this continent, so far as destroying barns is concerned. It is estimated that his troops have burned two thousand barns in Rockingham and Shenandoah counties, and I have no idea how many mills; all that they could find, I suppose.

The principal object in this highly civilized warfare is the wanton destruction of hay and grain, and nearly all the wheat that was in the Shenandoah Valley for a distance of thirty miles is in ashes this evening. If the destruction of wheat is considered to be a military necessity by the powers that be at Washington, then it is an open acknowledgment that the United States feels itself too weak and incompetent to crush the great rebellion by the fair and simple force of arms and has resorted to the torch, a mode of warfare down level with savagery, for this destruction of bread means almost and perhaps actual starvation to hundreds, yes, thousands of women, children, and old men throughout the burnt district.

It is true, General Sheridan, that you are now in the land of the swarthy captive; but if you will lift the curtain of the past and look well in the sands of time you will see the footprints of a Washington and a Jefferson who dwelt in this same land that held the dusky captive in bondage. And, moreover, these same mountain peaks that now silently look down on your hellish work of destruction once echoed the inspiring drum-tap that summoned our grandsires to the plains of Boston, where they willingly, voluntarily, and patriotically rushed to assist their New England brethren in tearing the claws of the British lion from the bleeding flesh of the young American eagle. Ah, but you scornfully say that we are Rebels. That is the same ugly word that George the Third’s red-coated Britishers used on the field of Concord and Lexington, and applied it also to General Washington, Putnam, Patrick Henry, and the whole host of American patriots; that epithet of itself surely puts us in no mean company, and surely not so as to deserve the cursed calamity that you are now heaping on the women and children in the Shenandoah Valley.

In 1775 in yonder little town of Woodstock the Rev. Peter Muhlenberg, whose patriotism called him from the pulpit to the field, cast aside his clergyman’s gown after pronouncing the benediction to his last sermon, and stepped from the pulpit in the full uniform of an American soldier. And as he moved through the aisle toward the door, distinctly and impressively uttering the stirring words, “There is a time to pray and a time to fight,” and proceeded to the church door and ordered drums to be beaten, from his congregation on that memorable Sunday a large company of faithful men volunteered as recruits for the American army that was then struggling for independence. Colonel Muhlenberg marched his men north, and subsequently the crash of the rifles in the hands of Muhlenberg’s sturdy and valiant Virginians on the fields of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Stony Point unmistakably proclaimed the gallant and unselfish patriotism and true fealty of the Virginians in the cause of American freedom and independence, and without the least trace of sectional hatred, envious jealousy, or mock philanthropy. But now all these recollections of past little favors lie buried in the ruins and wreck of two thousand barns and their valuable contents, and somebody is trying to crawl to fame through the ashes.

October 7 — We renewed our march this morning, still moving down the Valley. We passed through Turleytown, a little hamlet buried in the foothills of North Mountain just above Brock’s Gap. We struck the North Fork of the Shenandoah two miles below Brock’s Gap, then moved down the river to Timberville, a little village six miles west of New Market. At Timberville we left the river, turned to the left, and moved down through a section known in this part of the Shenandoah Valley as the Forest country. We passed through Forestville, struck across fields, and through woods to Mount Clifton. We are camped to-night near Mount Clifton, in Shenandoah County, about six miles northwest of Mount Jackson. We are close to the Yanks now, for our cavalry had a running fight with them this afternoon on the Howard’s Lick pike between Mount Jackson and Mount Clifton. This evening I saw some dead and wounded soldiers dressed in blue. Captain Koontz, a gallant officer of the Seventh Virginia Cavalry, was killed this afternoon. The Yankees are burning all the mills and barns in this part of the Shenandoah Valley; I saw a hundred barns burning to-day. Just at dusk this evening I saw a Federal soldier lying on the field; from all appearances he was mortally wounded. He was piteously lamenting his condition and said, “Oh, I want to see mother; I wish I would have stayed at home.” I wished so too, but I did not let him hear me wish. He was from Vermont.

October 6 — We renewed our march this morning, crossed the North River, passed through Bridgewater, and at Dayton, four miles west of Harrisonburg, we turned off toward the North Mountain and moved down the mountain through a very hilly country and over a rough road that hugs the mountain.

Camped to-night near Brock’s Gap in Rockingham County.

We will soon strike some sort of game, though it may be ignoble, as I saw some fresh tracks in its slimy trail in the way of recently burnt barns and a few houses in ruins. These highly civilized and pious Yankees have at last gallantly and patriotically resorted to the torch as a glorious means through which to strangle the great rebellion, by trying to starve women and children of this Southland.

October 5 — We renewed our march this morning down the Valley. At Willow Pump five miles below Staunton we left the Valley pike, turned off to the left, and moved in the direction of Bridgewater. I have no idea where we are camped to-night, only that we are in Augusta County, and plunged in among plenty of steep hills somewhere between the Valley pike and the North Mountain. The country we passed through to-day after we left the pike is very hilly.