September 22 — Early this morning we were ordered to Barboursville, which is about ten miles southwest of Orange Court House. We hurriedly packed up all our kitchen goods and camp chattels and were on the march early in the day, following General Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry. We passed through Orange Court House, came by Summerset, and at sundown we arrived at Barboursville.
All afternoon we heard artillery firing up the Rapidan. From all indications it seems that the Yankee cavalry is getting ready and ripe for a raid on Charlottesville or some other adjacent point on the Virginia Central Railroad, and we were ordered up here to Barboursville so as to be at a more convenient point from which to give the dear Yankee raiders a cordial and courteous welcome to Dixieland. When we arrived here this evening we put our battery in position near a church at the western edge of Barboursville, our guns bearing on the Standardsville road.
General Jones’ cavalry fought the Yankee raiders today at Liberty Mills, on the Rapidan, which, I think, checked the raiders somewhat and cracked the backbone of the contemplated raid. We are quartered to-night in a church, with our guns in position near the church doors.
