Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/314

 306 Southern Historical Society Papers.

lot of old Virginia hams, always valuable, but especially so under such circumstances.

At sunrise on the morning of the lyth, Miss Moorman went out on a hill near her house to reconnoitre the military situation. She saw a column of Federal troops moving on the Salem turnpike, and was looking at them very anxiously, when she was shocked to see a line of blue coats crossing the field close to her home. She at once ran back, sheltering herself behind the fence, but the officer in com- mand was at the door before she was, and ven' politely advised her to stay in the house while the fight was going on. The family were not molested during the two days that the troops were there. With exceptional visits to the front yard, she obeyed the officer's instruc- tions very carefully. She heard the constant cannonading and the picket firing without cessation all of the iyth and until the evening of the 1 8th, when the sounds changed and indicated that a real battle was going on close at hand. She was naturally in a fever of excitement, but could hear nothing of the result. About midnight of the iSth, or more probably on the morning of the igth, she heard the rumbling of wagons and artillery on the Salem turnpike, and found the lines around her house were being withdrawn, but it was some time before she discovered that the Federal troops were re- treating. It was then nearly daylight, and she slipped out of the house and ran down to the ford across Blackwater creek and notified the cavalry at that point what she had seen. A company was at once sent off in pursuit to verify her statement. After they had gone, and as she returned home, she met a solitary Federal soldier on foot, who asked her what had become of his command. She told him they had been whipped and had retreated, and informed him that he was her prisoner. He stated he had fallen asleep and had ben left, and at once surrendered to her.

On reaching her home, although it was not yet sunrise, she started over on foot to the point where the heaviest fighting had taken place, that she might learn the fate of her brother, Major Marcellus N. Moorman, who commanded a battalion of artillery in the Second Corps. He had not been in the fight, as the battalion had not reached Lynchburg until during the night of the i8th. His com- mand had started in the pursuit when she left home on her mission, but she .met him on the battle-field going to tell his mother good- bye. Thus another son of Lynchburg was in line to battle for her defence.

On the extreme right of the Confederate lines, and on a part of