Page:History of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry in the War Between the States.djvu/90

84 Among them was a young surgeon, travelling with a span of fine horses, handsome buggy, and colored servant. His surprise at being halted by our picket was manifest. His handsome buggy was brought to Virginia. Nightfall found us in the vicinity of Carlisle, where we expected to find our infantry, behind whose sheltering muskets we hoped to find one night of sweet sleep. Painful was the intelligence that this hope must be deferred to some more convenient time and place, as our infantry had retired to Gettysburg, and the enemy occupied Carlisle.

A demand for the surrender of the place was declined, and our cannons opened. The United States barracks blazed. The women screamed. The author, in charge of our now thoroughly-hated wagon-train, and provided with a guide, who, with bated breath begged that no names should be spoken, employed our half-asleep men in opening fences that we might pass across fields into the 'pike leading to Papertown, a little village nestling at the foot of the mountain. After reaching the 'pike the guide was informed, immensely to his relief, that he might retire. The whole face of the country, once familiar to the author, seemed now changed. Its great natural features, however, remained, and the recollections of boyhood were vividly recalled, as, when a student at Dickinson College, he had hunted over these grounds with his comrades, crossed the Yellow Breeches creek in a cider-trough and eaten lunch at a little spring up on the mountainside.

On reaching Papertown a halt was made for the command to close up. Here some of our men were busy in a search for rations, but most of them, suffering an agony for sleep, lay on the road with bridles in hand, some on rocks, and others on the wet earth, slumbering, soundly.

Our slumbers lasted only for an hour. Resuming the saddle, we moved over the mountain spurs along a broad macadamized road leading towards Gettysburg. The sound of cannonading reached our ears during the march, and once