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.
