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.
