Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/385

Rh enemy fell back again, and I was carried to our brigade hospital, near Gettysburg, and soon joined by Captains A. E. Hewlett and P. D. Ross, and Lieutenants Wright and Fletcher, all wounded officers of my regiment. The last mentioned, a brave young soldier, bled internally, and died during the night.

July 2d—We passed through Middletown and camped at Newtown.

July 3d—Marched through the historic old town of Winchester, and encamped at Smithfield. The Good people of W. received us very kindly and enthusiastically. July 4th—Declaration of Independence Day, but as we had other business before us, we did not celebrate the day in the old time style. We marched through Halltown and Charlestown, near the old field where that fanatical murderer and abolitionist, John Brown, was hung, and halted under a heavy cannonading at Bolivar Heights, near Harper's Ferry. This place on the Baltimore and Ohio rail-road, and on the Potomac river, surrounded by lofty mountains, was once a United State Arsenal and Government foundry. The Yankee camps had been hastily forsaken, and our men quickly took possession of them and their contents. After dark General RhodesRodes [sic] took his old Alabama brigade (now Battle's) into the town, where a universal pillaging of United States Government property, especially commissary stores, was carried on all night. The town was pretty thoroughly relieved of its stores, and the 4th of July was passed very pleasantly. Corporal A. F. Henderson, while in a cherry tree gathering fruit, was wounded by a minie ball or piece of shell, and carried to hospital in the afternoon. Fuller Henderson is a son of Rev. S. Henderson, D. D., a distinguished Baptist minister of Alabama, and is a true and unflinching soldier.

July 5th—In company with Captain J. P. Smith, A. I. G., Captain R. M. Greene, of Sixth Alabama, and Sergeant A. P. Reid, I returned to town again in the morning, and procured some envelopes, writing-paper, and preserved fruits, etc. The enemy's sharpshooters from Maryland Heights fired pretty close to us repeatedly, and bullets fell so rapidly it was dangerous to walk over the town. But as we were on a frolic, resolved to see everything, we heeded the danger very little. We returned to camp, near Halltown. I was sick and restless during the night.

July 6th—As I was weak from my sickness of the past night, I rode in an ambulance all day. Rhodes'Rodes' [sic] and Ramseur's divisions crossed the Potomac at Shepherdstown, and marched through the