R. T. Barton
At the towns at which we stopped to change horses, the boys who collected around were entertained with wonderful stories by our friends from Baltimore. Just outside of one of these stopping-places we passed an old gentleman, probably refugeeing, who wore a tall beaver hat and rode a piebald pony. To the usual crowd of lads who had gathered around, they said they were going to give a show in the next town and wanted them all to come, would give them free tickets, and each a hatful of "goobers"; then pointing to the old gentleman on the spotted pony, who had now ridden up, said, "Ah, there is our clown; he can give you full particulars." One hundred and thirty miles from the battlefield of Sharpsburg the dawn of the second day of our journey showed again the procession of wounded men, by whom we had been passing all night and who had bivouacked along the road as darkness overtook them.
They were now astir, bathing each other's wounds. The distance from Winchester to Staunton is ninety-six miles, and the trip was made by our stage in twenty-six hours, with stops only long enough to change horses.
From nine to ten o'clock in the night I was utterly exhausted, and felt that I could not go a mile farther alive; but rallied, and reached Staunton at six o'clock in the morning, having been twenty-six hours on the way. Here Sam Lyle and Joe Chester, of the College company, detailed as a provost-guard, cared for me until the next day, when another stage-ride of thirty-six miles brought me to Lexington and home. With the aid of a crutch I was soon able to get about, but four months passed before I was again fit for duty, and from the effects of the wound I am lame to this day.
Since going into the service in March, 1862, six months before, I had been in nine pitched battles, about the same number of skirmishes, and had marched more than one thousand miles—and this, too, with no natural taste for war.
CHAPTER XIX
RETURN TO ARMY—IN WINTER-QUARTERS NEAR PORT ROYAL
On December 13, 1862, the great first battle of Fredericksburg had been fought, in which four men—Montgomery, McAlpin, Fuller and Beard—in my detachment had been killed, and others wounded, while the second piece, standing close by, did not lose a man. This section of the battery was posted in the flat, east of the railroad. As I was not present in this battle I will insert an account recently given me by Dr. Robert Frazer, a member of the detachment, who was severely wounded at the time:
"First battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862.—We reached the field a little after sunrise, having come up during the night from Port Royal, where we had been engaging the enemy's gunboats. The first section, under Lieutenant Graham, went immediately into action in front of Hamilton's Crossing.