Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/547

Rh horses, the enemy destroying another wagon in which was forty or fifty long-range guns and three thousand rounds of ammunition, taken out by them to arm some tories.

[Signed], Brigadier General Commanding District.

, September 12, 1879.

A true copy of the original report, with the addition of explanatory notes. . Brigadier General late Confederate States Army.

In the summer of 1862, Ashby's brigade was encamped below Harrisonburg, about two miles distant from the town, on the Valley Pike. One Friday morning I was feeding my horse, when Lieutenant Rouss, company B, Twelfth Virginia cavalry, ordered me to report to headquarters of the regiment.

Upon my reporting to the adjutant, he informed me that I was to be the safe-guard to a captured Federal surgeon; that I must report in an hour, armed and mounted, and that I was to protect him from any violence while he was inside of our lines. He said that the surgeon was expected to take care of himself while traveling the fifty miles of neutral ground that lay between our pickets and those of the enemy. On my return to the company, I told the men that I was going to Winchester with a Yankee surgeon, and that if they had any letters they wanted sent home, now was their opportunity. The homes of a great number of our company were inside the enemy's line, and such an opportunity to write home was eagerly seized. In an hour my haversack was pretty well filled with letters, and I was ready to accompany the surgeon.

In conversation with the surgeon, I found out that he was Dr. Franklin, of the First New York mounted rifles; that he had been captured between Front Royal and Winchester by Captain Myers's company of the Seventh Virginia, and that General Robertson had ordered him to be sent back to the Federal lines. He was greatly surprised when he found that I had no pass or even verbal permission to go beyond our lines; and upon my representing to him that the country between the lines was filled with irregulars, to whom anything or anybody in blue