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

November 30 — This afternoon I went through the fortifications, or rather earthworks, situated on the hills west and northwest of Winchester. The earthworks were constructed by the Yankees and are about half a mile from town, and thoroughly command the town and all the surrounding country. There are five or six separate works, all of an octagonal form, surrounded by a ditch ten feet wide and twelve feet deep. One of the works is constructed of bags filled with clay, and I suppose that there are about two hundred thousand bags in the one work. The walls are thick and built with a careful precision as to proportions and angles, and all of them are perfectly shell-proof — at least against field guns. In the center of each work is an earth-covered magazine for ammunition storage, and in one of the works is a cistern for water.