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

December 30 — Late this afternoon a squad of men was detailed to go to Winchester after a new gun for the battery. I was one of the detail, and at dusk we left Martinsburg, nearly all of us riding bareback. It was about ten o’clock when we arrived at Winchester. We hitched our horses in the depot yard and the men scattered over town seeking quarters for the night. As I have recently taken practical lessons at Dam No. 5 in roughing it, I did not put myself to any inconvenience nor waste any time in searching for quarters, but wrapped my blanket around me and crept into a stack of baled hay in the depot yard, and there wooed Nature’s sweet restorer. It was a little coolish, but I slept well. A horse eating hay near my head when I went to sleep was my slumber song.