(56) The regiment left Webster on the 19th, going over the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad to New Creek, in Hampshire County, West Virginia, distance 89 miles, arriving there the same day. There were other troops besides the Twelfth. One of the regiments of these was the Twenty-third Illinois Infantry, Col. Mulligan's regiment. This command was made up almost if not entirely of men of Irish birth, Mulligan himself being of that nationality. He was a fine, tall, erect man, with a military air, and a general mien and bearing that would attract attention anywhere. For this reason, and because of his national reputation, no doubt, and, it may be, the circumstance that he wore a green shirt, he attracted considerable attention from our boys.
(57) As the weather was now pretty cold, and severe winter was approaching; and as we had established a camp here with regularly-laid-out streets, it looked as though we might winter here. But we staid here only three weeks. On the 11th of December our regiment marched by way of Burlington and Petersburg to Moorefield, the county seat of Hardy County.
(58) On the march to this place Lieut. Col. Northcott, stopping at a house on the way between Petersburg and Moorefield and getting thus behind the command, was taken prisoner by a Rebel scout. One of our scouts, however, followed the Rebel and his prisoner, and recaptured the Colonel, after, it was said, a severe hand-to-hand fight, in which each scout surrendered alternately, the Union scout coming out final victor.
CHAPTER III.
(59) At Moorefield the Twelfth was assigned to Gen. Cluseret's brigade of Milroy's division, and on the 17th Gen. Cluseret started on an expedition to Strasburg, Va., the Twelfth being part of his command. We marched 26 miles the first day, camping on Lost River, four miles from Wordensville. That night was cold and stormy. The wind blew so that it made the soldiers' blankets flap as they lay under them trying to get a little sleep, and it was so cold that in some cases they had to get up in the night to go to the large fires they had made to get warm. That night it froze so hard that the creek was frozen so as to bear up a horse, but not quite the artillery. There was some difficulty in getting it over the creek. It was to this bleak and inhospitable place that the eccentric genius, "Barney" Wiles of Company D, alluded when he spoke of "the place where fire froze and turkeys chewed tobacco."
(60) The second day the command marched through Wordensville to Capon Springs, 18 miles, encamping there for the night in the Mountain House, a magnificent building of 410 well finished rooms, situated right in the midst of rather a dense forest. Owing to the torturous mountain roads we were close to this building before observing it. Making a sharp turn in the road, its grand proportions flashed upon us suddenly, as if by magic. The water in these springs is quite warm, and much steam was arising from it that cold weather.
(61) We had good quarters that night, having nice mattresses on which to sleep. But we had to get up very early in the morning to resume our march to Strasburg. Surgeon Bryon of the Twelfth, in a half-jocular and half-earnest way, protested against getting up so early, saying "It's not the ideal thing, and I don't believe in it—this thing of getting up at midnight to stuff victuals and start out on a Rebel hunt."
(62) After "stuffing victuals" we pushed out for Strasburg, a distance of 18 miles, where the Rebel Gen. Jones was, with a small force, which retired before the advance of Cluseret's brigade, leaving only his rear-guard to skirmish with the advance, as it entered the town.
(63) Gen. Cluseret was a spirited, dashing Frenchman, who afterward figured prominently in belligerent affairs in Paris, after its evacuation by the Prussians, in the late Franco-Prussian War. And it was a picturesque sight to see him in his corduroy pantaloons, on nearing the town, dashing ahead of the infantry with a very small body-guard, while some skirmishing was going on with the cavalry. Some prisoners were taken here.
(64) On nearing Strasburg we got our first sight of the far-famed Shenandoah Valley, which had already been the scene, so far in the war, of some bloody battles, and was destined to be the scene of some far more bloody. And at the same time we got our first view of the no less famed Blue Ridge.