erers were so close around them, or that they would soon be awakened by the boom of Confederate guns, and hear the joyful sound of Confederate horsemen dashing over their streets. I was with my section on the Berryville pike, and my orders from the General were that as soon as the pickets were driven in we should make a dash for the courthouse, where he said the enemy was quartered, and open on it promptly, as there was no time to lose.

My boys were enthusiastic when they heard the order and were eager for the command to move. The General sent Captain McNeil and his adjutant, Captain F. B. Berkeley, in with a flag of truce to demand an immediate and unconditional surrender. Colonel Simpson, the officer in command, gallantly replied: "Come and take us you can." We met them just before we got to the courthouse and they said: "Hurry up, Lieutenant, they have refused to surrender. The building is loopholed and you will have to be quick or they will kill your men before you can unlimber."

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As we entered the town a small boy came out of a house and I called him to show me the way to the courthouse. His eyes sparkled with excitement and he said: "Take me up behind you, and I will show you.' When we got near the courthouse he said: “As soon as you turn that corner you can see it." I said to the youngster: "Now, you get off, for they will fire on us as soon as they see us and you might be killed." He replied: "Oh! please let me go along with you; I am not afraid." I had to pull him off my horse and, as he struck the ground, he called after me: "I am going, anyhow." And he did, sure enough.

As we turned the corner I saw the Yankees standing at the big windows with their guns in their hands. The courtroom was in the second floor. Just as we got unlimbered I heard the Yankee officer give the command to fire, and as I gave the same command, they poured a volley into us, but, strange to say, did not kill a single man. We fired several times rapidly, and soon the courthouse was obscured by the smoke. I discovered that they had stopped firing and gave the command to my men to cease firing. When the smoke cleared away I saw that the enemy had gone. We were so close and the room was so high that our shots had gone under them and I found that we had only wounded one man, a field officer. Poor fellow he was lying, horribly wounded, on the courthouse steps. He had on a beautiful sword, which he said had been presented to him, and which he asked to be allowed to retain. We fixed him as comfortably as we could and laid the sword by his side. The enemy

had gone out of town by the Harper's Ferry road, but were almost immediately charged by the 18th Regiment, and threw down their arms. Captain Julian Pratt made a dash for the color bearer and secured the colors. Colonel Simpson broke through our lines and struck out for the ferry with Harry Gilmor in hot pursuit, but reached the troops coming to his relief before Harry overtook him. A lucky man!

As soon as I saw that the Yankees were out of the courthouse I sent two men with a wagon and four horses, which we discovered hitched up near the courthouse, to go in and load up with plunder, for the Yankees had left everything behind in their flight. I especially gave orders to get all the knapsacks and blankets possible. I did not see my captain any more until the next day at Front Royal. We were looking forward to having a supply of blankets and clothing to last the company through the winter, but to our bitter disappointment the men had loaded the wagon with drums-thirteen drums-drums of all sorts and sizes. I turned them over to Colonel Smith, of the 62d, and he organized a fine drum corps.

The General came along and said: "Hurry up and get out of town, for the enemy are coming in heavy force from Harper's Ferry." Captain M. Frank Imboden was put in charge of the prisoners and he took them through the town at a double quick, followed by the small boys, black and white, yelling and jeering at them. We followed and found the streets full of girls, waving their handkerchiefs and cheering with wild delight, but they soon changed their tunes when they found that we were going to leave them again in the hands of the hated enemy. They begged and entreated us to stay, and although we hated to do it we had to go, and go fast, for a much larger force than we had came into one end of the town as we went out of the other.

I tried to get the girls to leave the streets so that I could rake it with a parting load of canister, but they were too enthusiastic to do so and we would not have risked a hair of their dear heads to kill a thousand Yankees. The enemy followed us as far as Berryville and made several desperate and gallant efforts to recapture their friends, making it warm for us and giving us a running fight all all the way. We fired our guns en echelon, some firing and some retreating. Several times they came near capturing them. At one place, I remember especially, they got on our right flank and within a few feet of us before we could turn our guns about, when Major Gilmor charged them and saved us. Just as he made the dash at them his

horse was killed, but in a second he was on another horse and right after the man who had shot his horse. In the charge he recaptured two of our men that the enemy had taken.

The Yankee Major in his account says: "Imboden, with half a dozen shells and a volley or two of carbine and pistol shots and considerable dash, had scooped in pretty nearly as many as his own force numbered. Our folks were never very proud of that day's work. The whole day was a stern chase, but occasionally, when Imboden was pressed too closely and was in need of time to keep the prisoners plunder ahead out of the way, he stopped long enough to give us a sharp taste of fighting that showed the metal that was in him."

In another page of the Major's story he says: "Our guns were well at work and as Minor was short of officers I was directing one of his sections, when, with a whoop and a yell, out of a thick undergrowth a little to our rear, came a couple of Harry Gilmor's squadrons, with that dare-devil sabreur leading them, not more than fifty yards away, and, of course, it did not take long for them to 'git there.' The rush was so sudden and unlocked for that our support gave way and Gilmor made straight for our guns, rode right over and past them, sabers slashing and pistols firing as they went. I had been tugging like blazes at my revolver, but could not get the blamed thing out, and as they rode over us a long-legged, redheaded fellow made a vicious slash at me over the wheel. I promptly dodged under the muzzle of the gun and he did not reach me. 'Fours left wheel' rang out and back they came before you could draw your breath. I laid for the son of saber that had reached for me before, for I had got my gun out by this time. I did not see my read-headed friend, but a handsome, dark-mustached youngster, a boy in looks, was making a point to run me through. Durn my buttons, gentlemen, if that sabre did not look as long as a fence rail. I dropped flat under the gun's axle and the boy swept past. As far as my experience goes that dash of Gilmor's was one of the handsomest things of the kind that occurred during the war."

The Major is mistaken about the two squadrons. Harry hardly had one with him at that time.

The poor prisoners were on foot and we were mounted, so they had a hard time of it, but as soon as their friends stopped the pursuit we gave them a good rest. We got safely back to our camp in Rockingham. Our loss of killed and wounded was not great.

An interesting incident in this connection is that these prisoners

got to the Valley pike at Newmarket (I think it was) where their officers were paroled and put in charge of Major Houston Hall, of the 62d Virginia (Mounted) Infantry. The gallant and amiable Major hired conveyances for the whole party at Newmarket, and, a sufficient store of old apple brandy having been laid in, the journey to Staunton was made very pleasant for all hands.

The truth of the proverb that "Kindness is never thrown away" has seldom been better illustrated than in this case. Some time during the winter of 1864-65 Major Hall had the misfortune to be captured, and was sent to Fort Delaware for safe keeping. I was there at the same time and recollect very well when the news was brought into our barracks that a new regiment had come to release the one that had for some time been doing guard duty on the island. In a little while word of inquiry for Major Hall of the 62d Virginia, was passed through the barracks. The Major answered the call and went off with the orderly, wondering what was wanted with him, and so did we who waited for his return. This return took place just after the tattoo was beaten on the garrison drums, when Major Hall came into his division of barracks under the friendly escort of a couple of officers of the newly arrived guard regiment. It did not take long for the Major to explain that this regiment was the Eleventh Maryland and that he had been out to dinner with their mess. That he had been well dined by somebody was evident to the meanest capacity. The Eleventh remained on guard over us for several weeks, and Major Hall spent most of his time, during the days, in the quarters of its officers, returning at night to barracks.

The beautiful Valley of Virginia was overrun and its people robbed and plundered many times. At the close of the war there was scarcely a barn or mill standing from Harper's Ferry to Staunton, and the renegade Hunter destroyed many of its beautiful country residences. The returning survivors of the great struggle found only ruin and desolation, but with the same heroic spirit that inspired them through the bloody struggle they went to work and in a few years the valley bloomed like a rose garden, barns, mills, residences, fences were built, and now everything looks lovely. But they haven't forgotten the cause they fought for nor the heroes who fell in its defense. Go into their cemeteries and you will find beautiful monuments erected to the memory of the noble dead; go into their homes and you will find matrons with silvered heads, who can tell you of scenes of horror that they have witnessed, and their eyes will grow

bright again when they tell you of the deeds of daring and gallantry of the men who wore the gray.

Comments on the preceding, by "Sentinel," of Baltimore.

The Federal officer so badly wounded, as related by Lieutenant Berkeley, was not a field officer. He was Lieutenant Charles H. Richardson, of Baltimore, adjutant of the 9th Maryland Federal Regiment. His hip-bone was shattered, but he recovered, though left very lame, and died some years after the war. It was said that he was one of the worst wounded men in the war to recover. The affair at Charlestown was probably the only fight in which he participated. The regiment was organized in response to Lincoln's proclamation of June 15, 1863, calling for additional troops to repel the Confederate invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the expectation was that it would be employed only in home defense and not sent outside of Maryland.

Richardson's kinspeople, in Baltimore, were divided on the questions involved in the war. His father had gone from the Whig party into the Know Nothing, the Native American, and, finally, the Black Republican party-as it was then styled. But a brother of his father, a staunch, influential Democrat, had edited a daily newspaper in Baltimore, and-counting the courage of convictions. rather than experience-had printed, right along, news from the South very distasteful to the Federal authorities. The newspaper (Republican and Argus), had an enormous sale, and was the delight of the Southern element, which all the more offended and exasperated the other side, and the authorities. Finally, one afternoon, as the paper was about to go to press, a detachment of soldiers, under an officer, with orders, arrested the editor and his two partners, destroyed or appropriated the newspaper property, and on that same day hurried the three prisoners, via the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, to Charlestown, Va., whence they were sent into the Confederate lines and warned not to return, under pain of being treated as spies. This outrage occurred in September, 1863, one month before Lieutenant Richardson was so terribly wounded.

Editor Richardson returned to Baltimore at the close of the war and lived to a ripe old age, greatly respected, and honored with public office; indeed, was a distinguished citizen, always.

Many there are who see in all this something like retributive fate.