April 1 — A few hours after sunrise the report reached camp that the Yanks were again on the advance. We were ordered to pack up double-quick and start our wagons up the Valley. We started down the pike with the battery, but before we got to Woodstock the Yanks had already made their appearance in sight of town. We halted on the hill at the south end of town a few minutes, then fell back to Narrow Passage, three miles south of Woodstock. When we started back a Yankee battery in position on a hill north of town fired some shell at us, but they all fell short.
One gun of Pendleton’s battery was in position at the south end of town and fired at the advancing skirmishers, but the Yanks had a four-gun battery in position on the hill north of town, which opened with all four guns on Pendleton’s piece and it retired under fire.
On the hill south of Narrow Passage we went in position and fired at the advancing enemy as it came in range. Their four-gun battery replied to our fire and we played ball with them a while with two guns to four, then fell back to a hill a little south of Edenburg. Edenburg is a little village on the north side of Stony Creek, five miles from Woodstock.
The Yanks followed our retreat and put their battery in position on the hill at the north end of Edenburg. Their position was higher and consequently commanded the one we occupied. Here we had a repetition of what we have been doing from nearly every hilltop between here and Winchester. We shelled the Yanks and the Yanks shelled us. The firing was rapid for a while, and right across the center of town. Our cavalry burned the railroad and pike bridge at Stony Creek. When that was fully accomplished we retired from our position, as the fire from four guns on a commanding elevation was getting too hottish for two on a lower and exposed altitude.
We fell back to Red Banks, eight miles from Woodstock, on the north fork of the Shenandoah, and camped.
