. Their banks could hardly hold them.

During the afternoon and evening the column was climbing the South
mountain. A big confederate wagon train was going through the gap ahead
of us. If we could capture that, it would be making reprisal for some of
Stuart's recent work in Maryland.

Toward midnight we were nearing the top, marching along the narrow
defile, the mountain towering to the right, and sloping off abruptly to
the left, when the boom of a cannon announced that the advance guard had
encountered the enemy. The piece of artillery was planted in the road,
at the summit, near the Monterey house, and was supported by the
confederate rearguard, which at once opened fire with their carbines. It
was too dark to distinguish objects at any distance, the enemy was
across the front and no one could tell how large a force it might be.
The First Michigan had been sent to the right, early in the evening, to
attack a body of the enemy, hovering on the right flank in the direction
of Fairfield, and had a hard fight, in which Captain Elliott and
Lieutenant McElhenny, two brave officers, were killed. The Fifth and
Sixth were leading and at once dismounted and deployed as skirmishers.
Generals Kilpatrick and Custer rode to the place where the line was
forming, and superintended the movement. The Sixth, under Colonel Gray,
was on the right of the line, the road to its left. At least the portion
of the regiment to which my troop belonged was in that position. I
think, perhaps, a part of the regiment was across the road. The Fifth
formed on the left; the First and Seventh in reserve, mounted. There is
a good deal of guess work about it, for in the darkness one could not
tell what happened except in his immediate neighborhood.

The order "Forward," finally came, and the line of skirmishers advanced
up the slope, a column of mounted men following in the road, ready to
charge when opportunity offered. Soon we encountered the confederate
skirmishers, but could locate them only by the flashes of their guns.
The darkness was intense and in a few moments we had plunged into a
dense thicket, full of undergrowth, interlaced with vines and briars, so
thick that it was difficult to make headway at all. More than once a
trailing vine tripped me up, and I fell headlong. To keep up an
alignment was out of the question. One had to be guided by sound and not
by sight. The force in front did not appear to be formidable in numbers,
but had the adva