(106) Lieut. Powell saw all his men and his prisoners safely across, then he the last of all, came across, having with his brave men, accompanied one of the most daring feats of the war. The crossing of the river alone, was one of the most perilous adventures one could undertake.
(107) After crossing the river, and forming his men, Lieut. Powell marched with his prisoners to Berryville, where he securely placed them in the county jail, under a vigilant guard. He and his men received the complimentary notice of Col. McReynolds, commanding post; of Gen. R. H. Milroy, commanding at Winchester, Va., and of Gen. Robert Schenck, who commanded the northern part of Virginia and of Maryland.
(108) Lapole, the morning after his capture, proposed that if he could be allowed fifty yards, and then a chance for escape, he would allow six or eight men to shoot at him. But when told there were that many men in the command who could kill a deer 100 yards running, he gave up the matter as a dangerous undertaking.
(109) He was afterward tried by a military court at Fort McHenry at Baltimore, and was sentenced to be hung, which sentence was executed on the 8th of May, 1864, one year and one month after his capture.
(110) The negro who informed, was literally shot to pieces afterward, by Lapole's comrades in their guerrilla warfare.
(111) The men who crossed the river and captured Lapole, did their duty nobly. Not one of them failing in a single duty assigned them.
(112) It was a mortification to Lieut. Means, that he did not get to cross the river and to share the danger with others.
(113) The men who participated in the capture of Lapole and his men, were largely volunteers from the several companies of the regiment. There was never any need of a detail when it was known that Lieut. Powell was to command.
(114) A company of the Twelfth, on the night of the twenty-ninth went out from camp a few miles to a house to capture some "bush-whackers" supposed to be there; but they failed to get any.
(115) In this connection may be told a little joke on Sergeant James Porter, who was of the detachment. There was a beautiful girl at the house, whom the sergeant got to see, and with whose beauty he was it seemed, much impressed. It appeared that the matter rested upon his mind; and the next day, though a quiet man, he referred to her beauty in evident admiration, saying, "Boys that was a mighty pretty girl that we saw last night, and I have a notion to go back there."