igh eminence one mile west of the town with a battery. No better position
could have been desired. They were flushed at the prospect of plunder and
pillage; their horses were fresh and sleek; their men resolute and
defiant. On the other hand, Averill and his men had been worn out and
jaded by long and heavy marches in Western Virginia for a number of
consecutive weeks. Their horses were run down, and many of them ready to
die, so that two hundred and fifty of these last could not be taken any
farther, but were left here to recruit. It is therefore only _possible_,
scarcely probable, that, even if Averill's force of less than two thousand
five hundred men had been here, a successful resistance could have been
made under these circumstances. But Averill and his men were not here
until several hours after the work of destruction was accomplished, and
the enemy, gloating over his vengeful deeds, was miles away on the Western
Turnpike, towards McConnellsburg.

Judge then, dear sir, how keenly we must feel the unjust reproaches heaped
upon us by professed friends, after our houses are in ruins, our goods
despoiled, and our hearts saddened at every step we take in beholding
continuous squares of desolation in our once beautiful town. And
reproaches _for what_? Because a picket guard of one hundred soldiers and
a small number of citizens did not successfully resist more than three
thousand[3] veteran cavalrymen, with cannon eligibly planted to lay waste
the town without even coming into it. That commanding position once
gained by the enemy, and the town was at his mercy, no matter what force
of cavalry or infantry might have been in Chambersburg.

Reproaches--and from _whom_ and _whence_? From certain newspaper editors
of New York; that same New York, which, with its population of half a
million, could not quell its rabble mob last year, without having a part
of the Potomac Army brought thither to guard some of the very newspaper
offices from which those reproaches upon a helpless town in a neighboring
State are now so unjustly heaped; those identical newspapers which have
ever and anon sent forth paragraphs of bitter invective against
Pennsylvania in general, and Chambersburg in particular, for the "ill
treatment of the New York militia" at the hands of our citizens.[4] New
York is a great State, and counts its noble and good men by hundreds of
thousands; but like every large State with large towns and cities, she
also counts