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

September 14 — This morning the shades of night were still lingering over the landscape when we left camp, and early dawn found us on top of South Mountain, looking over the beautiful Middletown Valley that was lying before us like a diversified illuminated map, with its wooded hills, pleasant fields, hamlets, and towns reposing in the quiet calm of a peaceful Sabbath morning. But before the sun shot its first golden lance across the Catoctin range to kiss away the early dew, the booming of Yankee cannon came rolling across from the Catoctin hills, announcing in ominous thunder tones that the Yankee hosts were advancing, and that there would be but little Sunday for soldiers to-day in this part of Uncle Sam’s domain. As soon as we found that the whole Yankee army was on the advance we moved about halfway down the mountain and went in battery ready to work on the first bluecoats that ventured within range of our guns. The cannon we heard so early this morning were at Jefferson, where the Yanks were shelling the woods searching, I suppose, for masked batteries, of which they are most awfully afraid.

There are two principal gaps in South Mountain through which main roads pass that lead west through the Middletown Valley. Turner’s Gap is the most important one, as the National Road which passes through Frederick City, Middletown, Boonsboro, and Hagerstown leads through Turner’s Gap, consequently the heaviest portion of the Yankee forces was hurled against the defenders of that pass to-day. We were at Crampton’s Gap, which is some four or five miles south of Turner’s and, judging from the small force we had there for its defense, it was not considered of much importance from a Confederate point of view. However, the Yankees did not so consider it, from the heavy force of cavalry, artillery, and infantry they brought to bear against it before the day was over. We had only three companies of infantry, Munford’s brigade of cavalry, and six pieces of artillery to defend the pass against at least two, perhaps three, divisions of Yankee infantry, with accompanying artillery and a big bunch of cavalry. At about ten o’clock we saw the first of the Yankee host, about three miles away, approaching our gap cautiously and slowly. As they drew nearer the whole country seemed to be full of bluecoats. They were so numerous that it looked as if they were creeping up out of the ground — and what would or could our little force of some three or four hundred available men standing halfway up a bushy, stony mountain side do with such a mighty host that was advancing on us with flying banners? As they came nearer to the mountain they threw out a heavy skirmish line of infantry on both sides of the road, and were still advancing very slowly when their skirmish line came to within about a mile of our position, so we opened on it with our rifled guns. Our line of fire was right over the village of Burkettsville, and completely checked their skirmishers about half a mile from Burkettsville. The Yanks now brought up a battery and opened fire on us, but they were about two miles off and all their shell fell short. I fired at them in return, but in so doing I disabled my gun. The mountain where we were in battery was a little steep and my gun is a vicious little recoiler, and the recoil space of our position was too sloping, rough, and limited for a free kick, consequently with the second shot that I fired—with a two-mile range—at the Yankees my piece snapped a couple of bolts of its mounting, entirely disabling it for the day. After my gun was damaged there was nothing for me to do but leave the field of action, but before I left I stood for a while and gazed at the magnificent splendor of the martial array that was slowly and steadily moving toward us across the plain below like a living panorama, the sheen of the glittering side-arms and thousands of bright, shiny musket barrels looking like a silver spangled sea rippling and flashing in the light of a midday sun.

The remainder of the battery held its position, and when the enemy advanced to a closer range opened fire and kept it up until nearly night; but late this evening the enemy forced the pass by flanking and fighting, with overwhelming numbers, and compelled our little force to retire. To observe the caution with which the Yankees, with their vast superior numbers, approached the mountain, it put one very much in mind of a lion, king of the forest, making exceeding careful preparations to spring on a plucky little mouse. For we had only about three hundred men actually engaged, and they were mostly cavalry, which is of very little use in defending a mountain pass like Crampton’s Gap, where there is one narrow road leading up the mountain and all the remainder of the immediate surroundings heavily timbered and thickly covered with regular mountain undergrowth and large, loose rocks and boulders.

Crampton’s Gap is really neither gorge nor gap, only a little notch in the crest of South Mountain, and nearly all the fighting to-day in trying to defend it was done on the eastern face of the mountain. It is marvelous how a few hundred of our men held in check nearly all day two divisions of Yankees, besides their artillery and cavalry, and I will venture the assertion that, as usual, correspondents of Northern newspapers will say that a little band of heroic Union patriots gallantly cleaned out Crampton’s Gap, that was defended by an overwhelming force of Rebels strongly posted all over the mountain and standing so thick that they had to crawl over each other to get away.

In retiring our disabled gun from Crampton’s Gap we went to Boonsboro and moved in a southwest direction about four miles on the Shepherdstown road to our wagons, where we arrived at ten o’clock to-night, and camped. In going from Crampton’s Gap to Boonsboro we passed within about half mile of Turner’s Gap, where a portion of General Longstreet’s forces were engaged, fighting desperately right in the gap, which the enemy was assaulting vigorously with a heavy force. The artillery fire was very heavy and the deep-toned thunder of Longstreet’s guns, mingled with the crash of fierce and incessant musketry, raged and roared and rolled along the mountain slopes and made the craggy battlements of South Mountain tremble from base to crest.

Boonsboro is a pretty little town at the western base of South Mountain, on the National Road. The houses are nearly all built of brick and kept in good condition all through the town. Before we got to Boonsboro we passed through Rohrersville, a small hamlet in a pleasant valley, three miles south of Boonsboro. We also passed through Keedysville, a small village three miles southwest of Boonsboro.

Pleasant Valley is a beautiful little mountain vale a mile wide, extending toward Harper’s Ferry along the western foothills of South Mountain.

September 13 — Early this morning just at dawn we heard cannon and saw them flash as they were fired about three miles away on the National Road, where it crosses the Catoctin Mountain. The enemy also advanced on the road we came over yesterday. We went into battery near Jefferson and fired on them a while, then fell back slowly toward Middletown. About noon, by pressing and flanking, the enemy forced General Stuart to fall back on the National Road a little faster than the programme called for. Then we made a forced retreat in order to keep the Yankee flankers from interfering with our rear or cutting us off from the main body of our cavalry which was on the National Road.

In falling back to-day I think it was the intention to strike the Crampton Gap road at Middletown, but when we arrived within one mile of Middletown we learned that the Yankee cavalry, which is getting bold, adventurous, mighty, and numerous in these latter days, had forced our cavalry on the National Road back a little faster than common, and had possession of Middletown. Consequently we had to cut across the country on a narrow, lane-like, hilly road, leaving Middletown a mile to our right, and gained the Crampton Gap road without any serious inconvenience. After we struck the Crampton Gap road we moved to Burkettsville without encountering any Yankees. Burkettsville is a little village nestling at the eastern base of South Mountain and right in front of Crampton’s Gap. We halted in the village a short while and then went up on the mountain side and put our battery in position in the road at a point which thoroughly commands the Middletown road and the fields around Burkettsville.

The Yankees did not advance farther than to within two miles of Burkettsville, where our cavalry met, fought, and repulsed them. Immediately after the fight Hampton’s Legion, a body of South Carolina cavalry under the command of General Hampton, came up the Middletown road in sight of our position. Colonel Munford thought it was a regiment of Yankee cavalry and ordered us to open fire on them. Just as we were ready to fire, a courier, with a Southern flag, came up the mountain and announced that it was Hampton’s Legion that was coming up the Middletown road. The courier came just in time, for if he had been one single minute later he would have heard a shell screaming overhead on its way searching for Yankees, which would no doubt have found Hampton’s Legion of South Carolinians. We remained in position till sunset, and no Yankees came in sight, when we crossed South Mountain and camped at its western base. We heard heavy cannonading nearly all day in the direction of Harper’s Ferry.

September 12 —We had nothing to eat yesterday, and, contrary to general orders, our lieutenant told us last night that if we could find corn or potatoes that we might take enough to satisfy the requirements of the inner man. We soon found both corn and potatoes, twin brothers in diet that can be so happily devoured without bread. It is wonderful and almost inconceivable what an amount of corn and potatoes a soldier can engulf in his internal arrangements when they are properly adjusted by healthy, honest hunger after an all-day’s march without a morsel to check the shrinkage of his musculo-membranous reservoir. This morning we were ordered to Jefferson, a small village about twelve miles west of Frederick City. We moved slowly all day, crossed the Catoctin Mountain, which divides the Middletown Valley from the Frederick City country. We arrived at Jefferson a little before night. Jefferson is in the Middletown Valley and in a pretty country, but judging from the sourish frowns that played over the faces of the female population as we passed through the streets this evening the village must be strong Union in sentiment. However, I saw one bright-faced lady standing in her room before a window waving a white handkerchief at us as we passed, though she did it in a manner as not to be observed by her neighbors. Camped near Jefferson.

September 11 — This morning we went on picket again on the same road, but did not go to the same place we were yesterday on account of an advance the Yanks made early this morning. We put our guns in position at a schoolhouse about five miles from where we picketed yesterday and about three miles from Urbana. The country around Urbana is full of roads, and to-day the Yanks advanced on several of them at once, but not on the one we were on. They attempted the cutting-off business on us again, but this time we played the fall-back game in due season, before the Yanks had a chance to close in on our rear, like they did the other day at Poolesville. We fell back from our picket post to Urbana and from there to the Monocacy bridge, without firing a shot. We put the battery in position on the bridge,— where the pike crosses the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,— which thoroughly commands the bridge where the pike crosses the Monocacy and only about three hundred yards distant, which is a first-class range for canister. We are camped this evening on the Monocacy, two miles from Frederick City.

September 10 — We moved back to camp this morning at Urbana. We were there not an hour before Colonel Munford sent for the battery to go back on picket, to the very same place we left this morning. We started back immediately after we received the order. We moved back to camp this evening.

September 9 — Last night we slept in a straw stack. To-day we moved about half a mile from where we straw-stacked it last night. At about three o’clock this afternoon the cavalry reported that the Yanks were advancing, so we put our guns in position in the road and were ready to give our United States welcomers an explosive reception. If the Yanks advanced to-day they did it in some other direction, as they did not make their appearance on the road we are on.

September 8 — This morning we started with the cavalry on a scout toward Poolesville, which is south of Urbana and eighteen miles distant. When we got to within one mile of Poolesville we spied the first Yanks that we saw since our arrival in the United States. They were cavalry, and showed fight right away.

We went in battery on a hill in the edge of a woods about a mile from the town, and fired some six or eight rounds at them, when they drew up their cavalry in columns with drawn sabers ready for a charge on our pieces, but we threw a shell which anchored dangerously near them, broke their ranks and scattered them rearward. They brought up a battery then and opened a well-directed fire on us, and eventually drove us from our position. Their battery was about a mile and a half from us, and every shell after the first two fell and exploded right in the midst of us. I believe that the confounded Yankees can shoot better in the United States than they can when they come to Dixieland. They did better shooting with their artillery to-day than any I have seen since I have been in service. For a while we seemed to be in a dangerous locality, for while the battery on our front was pouring in some good warm work some two or three regiments of Yankee cavalry closed in on us in our rear. Heaven only knows where they came from or how they got so completely in our rear, and on the very road we came over, and which was the only way of escape for us if there was to be any getting-out business in the game. Our situation was critical indeed, for the Yankees in our front were advancing rapidly and getting very bold and those in our rear charging and closing in on us, but at this juncture of affairs Colonel Munford, who had charge of the fight on that part of the field, became unduly excited, and as he galloped past us he shouted: “Cut loose from your pieces!” But the calm and gallant Chew, whose judgment could not be dethroned by a little danger or excitement, quietly unheeded Colonel Munford’s hasty advice or suggestion and told us to stick to our guns. Just then a regular fusillade of pistols and carbines opened all around us, with some of our cavalry with drawn sabers rushing first one way then another, not knowing whom to fight first, the ones in our front or the flankers in our rear. Fortunately, and just in time, the grand old Seventh Regiment of cavalry charged, with drawn sabers, in regular Ashby style and repulsed the enemy in our rear, and we slipped through the meshes of the dangerous web that the Yanks were weaving around us, and brought all our pieces out safely. Even then we were not on the dead sure side of safety yet, as the Yanks that were in our front at first attempted to flank and cut us off from the Urbana road, but the Twelfth Virginia Cavalry stubbornly held them at bay until we got past the cutting off place and were once more where we felt the gratifying virtue of an open and unobstructed rear. After we wriggled out of the most hazardous and eventful situation the battery was ever in, we fell back a mile and went in position on the road, but the Yanks did not pursue us. After we remained in battery in the road until we found that the Yanks had settled down for the day,—and I know we had enough for one dose,—we fell back ten miles and bivouacked for the night at the southern base of Sugar Loaf Mountain. Our cavalry lost very few men to-day, considering the close and mixed-up encounter that we were all in. I saw some of the shell from the Yankee battery explode right in the ranks of our cavalry, but it seems they did very little harm, and our side sustained very little damage all through. If to-day’s proceedings is an average specimen of the treatment the dear Yanks intend to give us in these dear United States, I think the best thing we can do is to go back to Dixie right away, for the Yanks seem to pop up out of the ground most anywhere, and if it had not been for the Seventh Virginia’s gallant and timely charge to-day this evening some of our battery would be on the way to a delectable den called a Yankee prison, while others might be traveling on that gloomy stream that unerringly drifts its silent passengers to that boundless mystery-veiled sea that lies beyond the outposts of mortal ken.

The country we traversed to-day is very diversified, at some places beautiful, at others hilly and rough. We passed through Barnesville, a small but pleasant village situated on a prospective eminence seventeen miles south of Frederick City.

Sugar Loaf Mountain bounds the beautiful valley of the Monocacy on the southeast, and is about three miles long and lifts its head above the valley in the Sugar Loaf style. On top of the mountain at the highest crest the Yanks have a signal station which affords a splendid view of the whole Frederick City country and all the country between the mountain and the Potomac, and also the greater part of Loudoun County, Virginia. The mountain is about six miles from the Potomac.

September 7 — It was midnight when we left the Southern Confederacy last night, forded the Potomac, and landed in the United States, in Montgomery County, Maryland.

We marched till the after-part of the night, and today till two o’clock, when we arrived at Frederick City. We halted there an hour or so, fed our horses, then moved to Urbana, seven miles southeast of Frederick.

Where we forded the Potomac last night it is about two and a half feet deep and four hundred yards wide, a gentle current and smooth bottom. In our march to-day we only touched the suburb of Frederick and did not go into the city, but saw its spires and cupolas. This town is situated in a beautiful country and surrounded by rich and fertile land, well cultivated. Two miles south of the city the main stem of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Monocacy, which is but a small stream, yet the railroad bridge that spans it is not a small one, and is substantially constructed of stone and iron. Jackson’s men were destroying it today when we passed. We arrived at Urbana at sunset, and camped.

September 6 — To-day we remained in camp at Leesburg until we had our guns repaired; then we moved to the Potomac, where we arrived a little before sunset; but it was impossible for us to ford the river immediately after our arrival in consequence of the vast number of wagons and artillery there waiting for an opportunity to ford.

The road between Leesburg and the river was so dusty to-day as to make it impossible to discern a man three rods distant.