Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/148

 142 Southern Historical Society Papers.

rat, and received two twenty-pounder parrot guns. On i6th, by order of General Jackson, reported to Colonel J. Thompson Brown."

On 28th, changed camp to the vicinity of Berryville, the camp where the roll was made. Whole distance marched since last mus- ter, two months before, three hundred and seventy miles.

The detachment under Lieutenant McCorkle, which was left at Martinsburg, took part in an independent movement which mystified the participants in it, and is briefly alluded to in one of General J. E. B. Stuart's reports, though he erroneously describes the artillery which took part in the movement. Soon after the battle of Sharps- burg, according to one of the men who was there, but just before that battle, according to the memory of another of the participants, this detachment, which was encamped in the northern part of the town, received orders to be ready with three days' rations, and early one morning marched into a designated part of the turnpike leading toward Williamsport. It found itself in company with one of the Richmond Howitzer batteries, which was under the command of Lieutenant Jones, and found soon that they were under the com- mand of Colonel J. Thompson Brown, who, with his staff, soon made his appearance. Soon the Second Virginia regiment of in- fantry, under Colonel Colston, and probably a part of another infan- try regiment, but not a part of the Stonewall Brigade, fell into line of march. After marching a few miles a halt was called, and from a by-road there appeared a body of cavalry, and it soon became known that this small army was under the command of General Jeb. Stuart. We supposed, naturally, that he was after some of his fun, which meant damage to the enemy somewhere. Before reaching the Potomac, the artillery was halted on a high hill from which was an extended view, embracing the village of Williamsport, Md., and the level lands east of it. The cavalry crossed the river at the ford, under the immediate command of General Stuart, and was seen moving eastward till it was concealed by a body of timber. The in- fantry also crossed, and remained near the river till the artillery crossed and passed through Williamsport, when it marched east- ward parallel with the route taken by the cavalry, but nearer to the river. The artillery, after a brief delay, was marched about a mile eastward from the village, and was placed in position in open ground about a quarter of a mile from the large body of woodland into which the cavalry had disappeared. The four guns of the Howit- zers and our one gun formed the artillery of this small army, and