March 1 — Late this evening we moved to the fair ground, which is at the north end of Winchester on the Martinsburg pike. We pitched our tents this evening for the first time this year.
Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.
February 28 — Moved to Winchester this morning and arrived there before ten o’clock. Remained in town awaiting orders till nearly night, then moved down the Berryville pike one mile, and quartered in a house on the south side of the road.
February 24 — This morning we renewed our march. The weather was calm, warm, and bright, with not a speck of cloud staining the sky, but we had not proceeded very far on our way before dark and threatening thunder clouds came rolling from the west, and soon broke over us in a drenching rain storm, with thunder and lightning in a regular midsummer style. But as our movement was not urgently important, the benignant humanity of our captain allowed us to stop, until the storm passed over and the rain ceased, and shelter ourselves in an old deserted house on the roadside.
We reached the Winchester and Pughtown road before night and quartered in a vacant house on the Pughtown road about six miles from Winchester, and near a little winding stream wearing the euphonious appellation of Hog Creek. The weather is beginning to grow warm, mild, and sunny. The boys are in good spirits and lively, and seem to be utterly unmindful of the hardships and dangers, deadly encounters and bloody conflicts, that are the attending concomitants of an active and vigorous campaign, which from all ominous appearances is ripe and nearly ready to open, for the breezes that sweep from the north already bear on their bosom the sounding echoes of the approaching footsteps and measured tread of a formidable and determined invading foe. Soon, ah, too soon, the demons of war will be brandishing their glittering blades and fiendishly slashing for human blood, and the dead and dying be scattered over the fields that are now ready to don the blooming livery of spring.
But hie away, ye gloomy reveries, distracting thoughts, and perplexing fears, and let the soothing touch of hope revive my drooping spirits. The war cloud may burst with all its fury and the red fiery eye of battle may glow in all its fiercest wrath, yet I may withstand all its destructive ravages, pass through all its fiery ordeals unscathed and untouched, and live to see the last fragment of war cloud drift away and dissolve in the radiant glow of freedom’s peaceful light.
February 23 — This morning we left Martinsburg with all our household and camping utensils, and from all noticeable indications we have said our last farewell to winter quarters for this season, and who can tell where we shall dwell to be merry another winter?
This evening we are quartered in a church at White Hall in Frederick County, about seven miles north of Winchester.
January 29 — We came from Charlestown to-day, and this evening we are home again in our winter quarters in Martinsburg.
January 28 — Early this morning we started toward Harper’s Ferry, through a cold and drenching rain. We got wet, and our clothes were stiff with ice, which put us in a first-class condition for fight — as wet hens fight well.
When we got to Bolivar near the Ferry the rain had ceased, but a heavy mist hung like a lacy pall over the river, through which we could dimly discern a Yankee encampment on the Maryland side, and near the canal I saw the bluecoats moving around among the tents, and from all appearances they were preparing breakfast. We went to the lower end of Bolivar and silently turned into a lot on the left of the street near a brick house and put our guns in position unobserved by the enemy.
We opened fire and landed a live twelve-pounder in their camp, which proved to be a regular surpriser. It stirred up the whole camp in general and stopped the breakfast business short off. I saw the men rush out of their tents, gazing about for a moment to ascertain where the unwelcome, noisy visitor hailed from. Just then we repeated the dose with another twelve-pound percussion shell.
They seemed then to comprehend that we meant business. They had also located our position, and hastily seizing their long-ranged rifles they ran hurriedly down the hill to the canal, some of them behind trees along the river, and opened fire on us. We were in range of their rifles, for I heard the dull thud of the bullets as they struck the ground around us. We fired five rounds, and then retired from our exposed position. After we ceased firing I heard it thunder over on Maryland Heights, and I also heard a few nailkegs whiz fearfully through the air. The Yanks had a battery of heavy rifled guns — twenty-four-pounders, I think — in position halfway up the mountain on the Maryland side, from which they fired some eight or ten rounds. They did not fire at our battery, but threw all their shell to our right; I suppose at some of Ashby’s cavalrymen. After the firing all ceased we returned to Charlestown, and are again quartered in the Court House.
The natural scenery around Harper’s Ferry is strikingly grand and picturesque. There the bright waters meet and laughingly lave the foot of a disrupted mountain. The Loudoun Heights spring from the right bank of the Shenandoah, like a mighty giant adorned in the sylvan garb of primeval splendor, and lifts its rocky crest far above the murmuring rapids of the river, and watches the Daughter of Stars mingle its limpid waters with the River of Swans. On the opposite side of the Potomac Maryland Heights lifts its craggy head still higher and pushes boldly out its adamantine breast till it almost overhangs the rushing river, and like a faithful sentinel it ever guards the single gateway that permits the waters of the Shenandoah and Cumberland valleys to pursue their winding way to the sea.
Bolivar Heights, with its Jefferson’s Rock apparently hanging in the air, lends enchantment to the scene of rippling silvery waters rushing around huge boulders in the river, and a rifted mountain with its rugged breach and delectable environments, where nature revels in her wildest beauty.
January 27 — Remained at Charlestown awaiting orders.
January 26 — This morning we received orders to go with Ashby’s Cavalry on a scout. At nine o’clock we were on the march. We went up the Winchester pike ten miles to Bunker’s Hill. There we left the pike and came by Smithfield to Charlestown, where we arrived after dark. We are quartered in the Court House. This is the town where the insurrectionist, John Brown, obtained a permit to paddle his canoe across the Styx.
January 15 — Wet and dreary, rained and sleeted all day. Renewed our march early this morning, forded Back Creek near Shanghai, crossed the North Mountain, and at noon we arrived at Martinsburg, wet, but glad to get into comfortable winter quarters once more. I never saw it sleet faster than it did to-day when we were ascending the North Mountain. The Bath trip is over. We were gone just fifteen days, and never fired a single shot.
January 14 — Snowed last night and this morning till ten o’clock, then cleared up with a very cold and unfriendly wind that swept fiercely over the bleak hills and mountains. We renewed our march, crossed Third Hill Mountain, the top of which was one vast stretch of pine thicket gracefully bowing under a crystal shroud of beautiful snow and glittering hoarfrost.
We reached Shanghai a little before sunset, and camped here for the night. Shanghai is a little hamlet on Back Creek, about twelve miles west of Martinsburg. That little old faded cap that General Jackson wears may shelter a brain that is filled with skeletons of strategic maneuvers, war maps, and battle-field plans, but if he thinks that we are India-rubber and can keep on courting Death with impunity, by marching in the snow with wet feet all day, and then be snowed under at night, he will find that by the time the robins sing again half of his command will be in the hospital or answering roll call in some other clime.
This morning when I got up I crawled from under four inches of snow on my blanket, and this was the third time we were snowed under in the last two weeks. We marched in the snow all day, and this evening I stood barefooted in the snow, on a little plank however, wringing the water not only out of my socks, but shoes too. My shoes are Confed. and the leather is only half tanned. I wrung them out this evening like an old heavy dish rag, and now they look like dog-feed. Looking at my dog-feed shoes sitting by the campfire is what causes the pessimistic reflections to troop through my brain.
