(46) Sergeant Orr has the floor once more for the narration of an incident said to have occurred here, for the truth of which, however, he does not vouch. He tells it thus:
(47) "Two men of the expedition went into a house to get something to eat. It happened that the male folks were all away from home, as was generally the case in that section when the Yanks were about, leaving only two single ladies of uncertain age in charge of the premises. When our two Yanks made their appearance, the two ladies became frantic with terror; and holding up their hands exclaimed, 'Take our money, take everything we have, but do not harm us personally'! 'You personally be damned,' said the Yanks, 'have you any corn-bread?' That soothed them."
(48) On this raid of the three companies we captured 60 head of horses and mules, 300 head of cattle, 41 prisoners and a wagon load of fine butter on its way to Staunton, Va. The owner of the butter was sent to Camp Chase. Where the bulk of the butter went is not known, but the boys made use of some of it.
(49) We arrived at Monterey on the night of the 9th, rejoining here the other seven companies, as before stated, which had accompanied an expedition under command of Gen. R. H. Milroy, to this point. The regiment remained here but one day, when we started on our return, by way of Crab Bottom, resting one day there in the old Rebel winter quarters. We resumed our march on the morning of the 13th, by way of Franklin, the county seat of Pendleton County; thence by way of Circleville and Hunting Ground Mountain, back to Tygart's Valley River, five miles below Beverly, our starting point.
(50) A sad accident occurred while crossing the mountain. A member of the Eighty-seventh Pennsylvania, who was along with the expedition, was accidentally shot by a comrade. His comrades attempted to carry him, but they could not do so, and they were compelled to bury him on the lonely mountain, using their bayonets to dig his grave.
(51) Leaving our camp below Beverly, we marched to Webster, on the Parkersburg branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, where we arrived on the 18th, marching a distance of 238 miles in fourteen days during the most inclement season of the year, fording mountain streams, swollen by melting snow and rain, many of the men barefooted, and the roads half knee-deep with mud. It is not to be wondered at that many of the men succumbed to this severe ordeal, and were candidates for the hospital on our arrival at Webster.
(52) One more incident of this raid will perhaps bear relating. Some of the boys took the measles on the route. On the return to Beverly a sergeant was sent in charge of an ambulance containing four sick boys, something in advance of the regiment, and over a different route, it is believed, from that taken by it. One evening, the second out, perhaps, after ascending and descending Cheat Mountain, the driver halted the ambulance just at its base on the west side, where there was a hotel.
(53) Now it happened that Gen. Milroy and his Adjutant General, Capt. McDonald, if his name is not mistaken, were going to put up at that hotel. The boys being quite sick, the Sergeant spoke to the landlord to procure beds for them. He seemed reluctant to comply with the request, and perhaps, to baffle the Sergeant, he told him to see Capt. McDonald about the matter, saying it would be just as the Captain said.
(54) It often is the case that a man holding an inferior rank or position assumes an air of more importance, and more of "the insolence of office," than do his superiors. This Captain was no exception to this rule. In fact, he was a specimen of the type of fellows represented by the fellow who was "a bigger [sic] man than old Grant." So when the Sergeant spoke to him regarding the getting of the beds, he put on a forbidding and repellant air and said sarcastically that "he was not quarter-master." The Sergeant replied with somewhat of offended dignity that he would not have come to him at all, only that the landlord had referred him, the Sergeant, to him, the Captain.
(55) Here Gen. Milroy spoke up in a courteous and considerate manner, quite in contrast with that of the Captain, saying "We do not assume to have the disposition of the landlord's beds; they are entirely at his own disposal. As for myself, I can sleep on the floor." The Sergeant, being thus left to his own resources, secured those beds for the sick boys.