October 16 — This morning before daylight we were put in marching order without many preliminary remarks or extensive preparation, and when day began to dawn we were on the march down the Valley pike. A train of about two hundred wagons from General Sheridan’s army came to Winchester to-day for supplies. We prisoners marched in rear of the train, wagons and Rebs all under a very strong escort composed of a whole regiment of infantry, the Sixth New York. Just before we arrived at Winchester a herd of well-dressed sleek looking bandbox clerks, orderlies, aides, and camp followers in general came out of town to see the Rebel prisoners. Some of the herd left all their manners and good behavior at home, for if they ever had any true manliness or ethical culture it was all absent on furlough this evening, as they acted more like saucy, insolent school children than like men in their country’s uniform. In their gibes and sneers they called us ragged, dirty Rebels, and that we looked more like a gang of beggars than soldiers. Even the old soldiers that guarded us were ashamed of the brassy exhibition of shameless cheek and vile indignities of the wayside rabble. One of the guards remarked to me, “Don’t mind or take notice of what these kid-glove gentry do or say; they have never been to the front and have never seen a battle.”
To-night we are quartered in the court house in Winchester, with our faces turned toward some dismal prison somewhere in Uncle Sam’s vast domain. And as I am about to say farewell, and perhaps forever, to the green hills and lovely mountains of the Shenandoah Valley, the home of my childhood, I swear by yon pale crescent that hangs in the rosy twilight of a western sky that so long as the star of hope glimmers through the thickening gloom so long shall my fondest memories play across your pleasant bounding hills, and wander with delight along your silvery murmuring streams, and linger with soothing recollections around the sunny mountain peaks that silently sentinel and watch the haunts of my boyhood.
