on our old familiar and beaten path--the
Valley pike to New Market. Thence obliquely to the right, crossing the
Massanutten Mountain into Luray Valley. During the Milroy campaign Ewell
had crossed into the Valley, and we now followed his division, which was
several miles in advance. Banks was in command of the Union force in the
Valley, with his base at Winchester and detachments of his army at
Strasburg, eighteen miles southwest, and at Front Royal, about the same
distance in the Luray Valley. So the latter place was to be attacked
first. About three P. M. the following day cannonading was heard on
ahead, and, after a sharp fight, Ewell carried the day. We arrived
about sundown, after it was all over. In this battle the First Maryland
Regiment (Confederate) had met the First Maryland (Federal) and captured
the whole regiment. Several members of our battery had brothers or other
relatives in the Maryland (Confederate) regiment, whom they now met for
the first time since going into service. Next day we moved toward
Middletown on the Valley pike, and midway between Winchester and
Strasburg.

Jackson's rapid movements seemed to have taken the enemy entirely by
surprise, and we struck their divided forces piecemeal, and even after
the Front Royal affair their troops at Strasburg, consisting chiefly of
cavalry, had not moved. Two of our guns were sent on with the Louisiana
Tigers, to intercept them at Middletown. The guns were posted about one
hundred and fifty yards from the road, and the Tigers strung along
behind a stone fence on the roadside. Everything was in readiness when
the enemy came in sight. They wavered for a time, some trying to pass
around, but, being pushed from behind, there was no alternative. Most of
them tried to run the gauntlet; few, however, got through. As the rest
of us came up we met a number of prisoners on horseback. They had been
riding at a run for nine miles on the pike in a cloud of white dust.
Many of them were hatless, some had saber-cuts on their heads and
streams of blood were coursing down through the dust on their faces.
Among them was a woman wearing a short red skirt and mounted on a tall
horse.

Confined in a churchyard in the village were two or three hundred
prisoners. As we were passing by them an old negro cook, belonging to
the Alleghany Rough Battery of our brigade, ran over to the fence and
gave them a hearty greeting, said he was delighted to see them "thar,"
and that we wo