Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/344

330 long train of wagons and a pontoon bridge train. The men looked at the latter with much interest, as they were the first we had ever seen. Marching a little further a string of fire is seen along a stone wall and the crack of muskets tell it is from the enemy's rear guard. They stop now at nearly every wall and give us a volley. General Jackson, who is always in front on an advance, came near being shot from one of those walls. The first we know of their presence is in seeing a string of fire along a wall, then the crack of their muskets and the ping of bullets. We captured over one hundred wagons during the night, keeping up the pursuit without intermission until near daybreak, when we were halted and allowed to rest an hour or two in our places along the road. Soon after daybreak on the twenty-fifth, we are on the move again. When we reach the mill about two miles from Winchester, find that the enemy have made a stand on the hills behind the mill. We were met here by one of our skirmishers who was wounded; he was hatless and had been shot in the head; the blood was streaming down his face so freely that he could hardly see. The Stonewall Brigade in the lead, take position behind some old rifle pits on the brow of the hill; the Second Brigade take the road to the left, march a short distance, file to the right and form line of battle under the hills and left of the Stonewall Brigade, the Twenty-First Virginia Regiment, supporting the Rockbridge Battery.

We could see Ewell's command way round to our right on the Front Royal road engaged with the enemy.

The mill is situated in the junction of a road with the valley pike, at the foot of a range of hills that run back behind and beyond Winchester. The enemy in our front are behind a stone wall that runs entirely across the open field and little way behind them on a higher point are two batteries of artillery. A piece of Rockbridge Battery is run out on a knoll on our left; they are met with a hail of grape and minie; every man at the piece is killed or wounded; nothing daunted they run out another piece, but are more careful not to expose it as before; the men are soon picked off by the enemy behind the wall and they are forced to abandon both pieces; the pieces are safe, however, as