Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 36.djvu/111

 From the Richmond Dispatch, July 8, 1900. HUNTER'S RAID, 1864. A Charge Through Harrisonburg—A Ride to the Rear.

'''In Search of Gallant McNeil—Gen. Wm. E. Jones and the Telegraph Operators—Gen. John C. Breckinridge at Meechum's River Depot.''' (One evening, not long ago, several comrades of the Confederate war were sitting quietly together in Harrisonburg, Va., relating in turn little incidents of war experiences. It was argued that these minor experiences, while felt by every one to be of little value, and almost always told for the pleasure one seems to have in living the days over again, and in bringing up images of persons and things endeared to memory by association, yet that they do form parts of a great tragedy of history; and that if the personal recollections of every veteran, Confederate and Federal, could be secured, and properly edited, and chronologically arranged, a vast series of volumes could be produced, possessing universal interest. The following recollections afford some glimpses of things in the Virginia Valley at the particular time, and were related by one of our number, who was the last two years of the war out-post military telegrapher in the Valley. We set them down as spun out to us in. this reminiscent way—in his own words, just as told)—X. Y. Z. The day before General Hunter advanced on Harrisonburg, and when he was lying quietly at New Market, where he had apparently come to a stop, taking my office watchman, Atchison, with me, I left Harrisonburg and went as far down as Yate's blacksmith-shop, four miles south of New Market, and tapped the wire, fastening my keyboard and magnet in the iron vise. Picking our way wearily by private lanes and through fields, we succeeded in reaching Professor Joseph Salyard's residence and other points east of New Market, procured information of value concerning the enemy's forces and plans, and late New York newspapers brought out from New Market that morning.