Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/144

130 Old Town, in Hampshire county, now West Virginia. Thence they moved on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad at New Creek, and finding that heavily fortified and defended, proceeded to Moorefield in Hardy county, where they camped on the 6th of August. The First and Second Maryland had been placed under command of Lieut-Col. Harry Gilmor and were camped up the Romney road. The lines were made, the camps pitched and the pickets posted according to the orders of Brigadier-General McCausland, the commanding officer of the expedition, and Brigadier-General Johnson obeyed his orders. Next morning before day Averell surprised Johnson's picket on the Romney road, captured the reserve, and then rode over the camps of the two Maryland battalions. Johnson just escaped capture and endeavored to rally his brigade. But the surprise was too nerve-shattering. The Twenty-first Virginia, Col. William E. Peters, was the only regiment that could be held in hand. Peters was a man of iron resolution and imperturbable courage. He couldn't be shaken. Earthquakes, tornadoes, electric storms couldn't move him. He would have stopped and asked, "What next?" if the earth were opening beneath him and the mountains falling on him. Johnson set him to hold Averell, while he brought the rest of the brigade to his support. But the Federal rush, the elan of success, was too strong. It carried off the Twenty-first Virginia like chaff before the whirlwind, leaving Peters shot through the body, mortally wounded, if any wound can be mortal. But human will triumphs over human anatomy and surgical skill, and Peters survives to this day as indomitable in his Latin professorship as he was that drear morning at Moorefield.

After the return from Chambersburg, the Maryland Line in Johnson's cavalry brigade was actively engaged in all the operations of Early in the valley. There was not a fight in which the Marylanders were not in front. Like the clan McDonald, which refused to charge at