A day or two after my arrival at my post, I succeeded in buying
a very good riding horse, and hired a capable servant. I may as
well say just here that I found Colonel Manning, my immediate
superior, an exceedingly easy man to get along with. Unquestionably
a gentleman in his tastes and habits, and brave as a lion, he knew
comparatively little of his work as Ordnance officer, and was
unable to write an ordinary official letter correctly. Spelling was
indeed his weakest point. He was from Aberdeen, Miss., and died at
his home there three or four years after the surrender. Lieutenant
Leech was from Charlottesville, Va., and was very quiet and
unassuming. Lieutenant Duxberry was good tempered, but exceedingly
conceited, and casting about always to make himself friends at
head-quarters. One of his peculiar conceits was that his name,
Duxberry, was a corruption of Duc de Berri, from whom he supposed
himself to be in some extraordinary way descended. I found out
afterwards that, at the beginning of the war, he was an assistant
in a drug store at Montgomery, Ala., and that he was born somewhere
in Massachusetts.
Longstreet pressed through Thoroughfare Gap and reached Manassas
just in time to save Jackson from being overwhelmed there. I knew
but little of what was going on, and did not see much of the great
battle itself. Here I made my first capture in the shape of a
Gatling gun which had been abandoned by the enemy, and what was of
more importance, I secured a commissary wagon containing a barrel
of ground coffee.
The army now advanced to the Potomac, which we crossed at Point
of Rocks; the bands playing “Maryland, my Maryland!” There was
no cause to complain any longer of a lack of provisions, and we
were able to buy whatever we wanted with Confederate money at
fair prices. After resting a day or two at Hagerstown, where we
completed the equipment of our mess, we moved rapidly to South
Mountain, where we had a brisk fight, and were driven back. This
was on August 15th, I think. Late at night I rode back to the
camp to get some supper, but had hardly told the cook to make the
necessary preparations when an order came from General Longstreet
to me to take charge of the Ordnance trains of the corps, and move
them to Williamsport. The order was imperative, and I was directed
to move as rapidly as possible.
At about ten o’clock at night I started. It was intensely dark and
the roads were rough. Towards morning I entered the Hagerstown and
Williamsport Turnpike, where I found a cavalry picket. The officer
in charge asked me to move the column as quickly as I could, and to
keep the trains well closed up. I asked him if the enemy were on
the road, and he told me that it was entirely clear, and that he
had pickets out in every direction. It was only a few miles now to
Williamsport, and I could see the camp-fires of our troops across
the river. I was hungry, sleepy and tired, and the prospect of camp
and supper in an hour seemed the summit of bliss. I was forty or
fifty yards ahead of the column, when a voice from the roadside
called out “halt!” The gloss was not yet off my uniform, and I
could not suppose that such a command, shotted with a big oath,
was intended for me. In a moment it was repeated. I quickly rode
to the side of the road in the direction of the voice, and found
myself at the entrance of a narrow lane, and there adown it were
horses and men in a line that stretched out far beyond my vision.
To the trooper who was nearest to me I said indignantly: “How dare
you halt an officer in this manner.” The reply was to the point:
“Surrender, and dismount! You are my prisoner!” Almost before the
words were uttered I was surrounded, and found that I had ridden
right into the midst of a body of Yankee cavalry, numbering about
two thousand, who had escaped from Harper’s Ferry that night to
avoid the surrender which was to take place in the morning. I
was placed under guard on the roadside, and as the trains came
up they were halted, and the men who were with them were quietly
captured. In a short time the column moved off in the direction of
the Pennsylvania line. I was allowed to ride my own horse. By the
side of each team a Federal soldier rode, and, by dint of cursing
the negro drivers and beating the mules with their swords, the
cavalrymen contrived to get the jaded animals along at a gallop.
While we were halted, one of my Sergeants had knocked the linchpins
out of the wheels of the leading wagons, in the hope that this
would delay the march. The wheels came off and the wagons were
upset, but a squad of men dismounted instantly, threw the wagons
out of the road, and set fire to them, so that there was no halt
of consequence. I had a cavalryman on each side of me, and tried
vainly to get an opportunity to slip off into the woods.