October 9 — This evening I am a prisoner of war, and I could curse a blue streak on several legitimate routes if I thought that there was the least speck of rectitude, virtue, or efficacy in the low-grade performance of swearing. First, the way our battery was managed and maneuvered on the field to-day was a censurable reflection on good judgment and a burlesque on practical military tactics. Second, the shameful way that our cavalry, especially that portion that tried to operate on the North Mountain road, fought, bled, and died a-running rearward was enough to make its old commander, General J. E. B. Stuart, weep in his grave. Ring down the curtain on that scene, for the cavalry played a regular exeunt act.
This was a gloomy October day all over. Rough fragments of dark wintry clouds came rolling over the North Mountain and scudded swiftly across the sky, now and then scattering a few snowflakes that were whirled through the crisp air by a chilly west wind. Before sunrise this morning we were ordered to the front, and we did not proceed far from our bivouac before we saw the fields blued all over with hosts of Yankee horsemen in full battle array in line and column, with a battery or two in position, all ready for business. We moved down the North Mountain road to within about a mile of the enemy’s position and put our two rifled guns in position on the face of a hill that sloped toward the Yankee line. It is true the hill we were on was considerably higher and commanded the enemy’s position, but it was a mistake to put our guns in battery on the slope facing the enemy’s battery and line, for we were at once fully exposed to a raking fire of their guns all the time and all over.
However, we opened a rapid fire on their battery, and they responded to our fire in the same kind of a business manner and their shell and shrapnel and solid shot raked and plowed up the sod all around our guns. One of my shell exploded right over one of their guns and silenced it for a while, but eventually the fire of their battery grew too hot for us, and a large body of cavalry was advancing on our position on both flanks, with but a few scattering cavalrymen on our side to oppose them, consequently we were forced to retire from our first and dangerously exposed position with the insignificant loss of one mule, killed by a shell. And we left our position not a moment too soon, for it was not long after we retired until I saw the blue horsemen swarm all over the hill that we had just left. We fell back to the next hill, put our guns in battery and opened fire again on the oncoming host in our front, but we did not hold our second position long, as the Yankee cavalry pressed us to the yielding point soon after we opened fire, and our cavalry rendered us very little support, as they were scattered all over the hills and fields and preparing to make a dash to the rear, which they accomplished in fine style just before our guns were captured.
The third position from which we fired we did not hold more than thirty minutes before we were driven from it, and after we had limbered up someone cried, “Boys, save yourselves!” I suppose it was our first lieutenant who called out, but he was too late; the Yankee cavalry on our left flank charged, and five men of the Eighth New York Cavalry dashed on us with leveled pistols, and brought my gun to a halt with me on the limber chest, and in less than five minutes there were a thousand Yankee cavalrymen, with drawn sabers, around us. One of the cavalrymen fired at me after I halted, and although he was only about ten feet from me when he fired he was so awfully excited that he shot wildly and missed me. He then rushed on me with drawn saber, lifted high and ready to strike, but something restrained him, and my life was saved. After the excitement died away a little the man that shot at me came to me and asked me to excuse him for shooting at me after I had halted. He acknowledged that he was greatly excited and hardly knew what he was doing, as that was the first piece of artillery he ever helped to capture. After making such an honest and open confession voluntarily, there was nothing left for me to do but excuse him, which I did with the humble grace of a subjugated captive.
Sometimes when a man is surrounded by gleaming sabers and in the midst of cracking pistols, and in the very presence of immediate and impending danger, his imagination can be wrought to such a pitch as to seem to move in the very trail of reality,— and is the same stuff that dreams are made of,— for when my captor shot at me and then rushed at me with his saber I thought that I felt the cold steel crashing through my brain, and the world had commenced to fade away. To show how badly and carelessly affairs pertaining to the movements of our battery were managed, I saw two regiments of Yankee cavalry about six hundred yards to our right pass us going to our rear just after I was ordered to cease firing. I did not know then they were Yanks, but I found it out subsequently, and the person that had command of our battery ought to have known, and not have held us in position until we were actually surrounded. When the regiments passed I thought they were our cavalry falling back, but after I was captured I soon found out who they were — they were all dressed in blue, and no Confederate battle-flag floated over them. About fifteen minutes after we were captured the Yankee horse artillery came up the North Mountain road, in a quick walk in pursuit of our flying cavalry. A sergeant of their battery came dashing into the field where we were with our captured gun, and demanded, in an authoritative manner and tone, “Are there any chief of pieces captured? We intend to make you fight on our side.” I thought perhaps he might have meant gunners, and I lied then and there, and told him No, that our non-commissioned officers were all well mounted and made their escape. But he made us fall in column with their horse artillery, and we marched with it about a mile and a half; but our cavalry disappeared so fast that fortunately we were not called upon to do any firing for Uncle Sam.
My gun was captured about two hundred yards east of the North Mountain road, in a large field about six miles north of Woodstock. I fired seventy-five rounds this morning before the Yanks captured my gun, and I was captured just a little before noon.
When the Yankee column halted, waiting for developments and orders, a gunner of their horse artillery came to me and told me that one of our shell exploded right at his gun this morning, and wounded four of his cannoneers, and said he, “I did not know what to do with you; my fuse was too long and too short, so I fired a solid shot.” He did not know that he was talking to the gunner that fired the shell that played thunder with his squad, and he never will know; but the shell referred to was the very one that I fired this morning and saw explode near one of the enemy’s guns. I knew that my shell did some good ugly work among the blue gentlemen, from the fact that after their piece opened fire again I saw the solid shot digging ditches around us. We had two rifled guns captured, with nearly all their belongings, all we had in the fight, but most of the cannoneers were well mounted and made their escape.
About middle of the afternoon that part of the Yankee cavalry that had us at anchor fell back to where Tom’s Brook crosses the North Mountain road, which point was rather a base of their day’s operations.
There we bade farewell to the horse artillery and were moved down to a point back of Strasburg, under the surveillance of a heavy guard from the Twenty-Second New York Cavalry; in fact, our guard looked almost like a whole regiment. They double-quicked us about half of the way. I have no idea what their object was in such a proceeding, unless it was to try and test the endurance of a Rebel’s wind. For two or three miles we passed through camp after camp of soldiers, some of which looked very much like infantry camps. It was way after night when we stopped to camp, or rather when our Yankee friends stopped and allowed us the same privilege.
After we had retired to our blanket beds and were about ready to enter the dreamland gates a Yankee marauder who had been out and robbed a bee stand came rushing into camp and reported that some of Mosby’s guerrillas were in the neighborhood and got after him in his bee hunt. As quick as the alarm reached camp two or three bugles commenced sounding Boots and Saddles, which hurriedly roused the whole camp, Yankees and Rebels, and we were rushed back in trotting style to Tom’s Brook, from where we had started. These Yankee cavalrymen seem to be most awfully afraid of Mosby or any of his men. It is now past midnight and we have at last settled down for the night, in a freshly sown wheat-field on the North Mountain road, near Tom’s Brook. We have marched about sixteen miles since we were captured. There are about a hundred prisoners in our bunch, mostly cavalrymen. Soon after I was captured I saw General Custer, who is a very plain, common-looking man. He was dressed in a plain brown suit entirely void of ornament, and had on a broad-rimmed slouch hat. He has not had his hair cut for some time, for it hangs down on his shoulders, which gives him the general appearance of an old hunter more than the resemblance of a great soldier and general.
