n cavalry made a
desperate effort to drive in our cavalry and discover the route of our
main army.

Heavy fighting began at Aldie, below Middleburg, and was continued up
the pike through the town of Middleburg up as far as Upperville, where I
had been captured the year before.

The enemy's cavalry was supported by infantry, and our forces fell back
fighting foot by foot until they reached Upperville, where we met a
division of infantry that Gen. Lee had sent to help us beat back the
enemy. The Confederates who were killed in this action are buried in
Middleburg and Upperville, in the cemeteries just outside of the two
towns, and the ladies of these villages and the country round about were
kept busy caring for the wounded.

I escaped some of the heaviest of this fighting by being detailed to
guard the prisoners back to Winchester.

The night before the battle I was sent out along the road at the foot of
the mountain to discover whether the enemy was approaching from that
direction or not. After a lonely ride of several hours I came back and
had a time finding Gen. Stuart, to whom I was instructed to report. I
found him asleep on the porch of the home of Caleb Rector. I aroused him
and delivered my message. His reply was, "All right." I looked up my
own command, and lay down for the remainder of the night.

Lee's army crossed the river at Williamsport, Md., on the pontoon
bridge.[3] The Northern army crossed between Harper's Ferry and
Washington, and our cavalry, strange to say, went below the Union army
and crossed the river near Washington, thus circling the Union army and
arriving at Gettysburg the last day of the battle. Stuart captured and
destroyed many wagons and much property on this expedition.

My brigade of cavalry did not follow Stuart, but followed the main army,
bringing up the rear.

After crossing the river, Lee led his main army straight for
Chambersburg, Pa. I cannot describe the feeling of the Southern soldiers
as they crossed the line separating Maryland and Pennsylvania, and trod
for the first time the sacred soil of the North. Many of our soldiers
had been on Maryland soil before this, and although Maryland was not a
part of the Confederacy, we felt that she was one of us, and while
marching over her roads and fields we were still in our own domain, but
not so when we crossed into Pennsylvania. We were then in the enemy's
territory, and it gave us inexpressible joy to think that we were stro