A hundred yards farther on our road joined the main pike at an acute angle, and entering it he swept on. Then, just behind me, a Federal cannon was discharged. The charge of canister tore through the brush on either side, and over and under me, and at the same instant my steed's hind leg gave way, and my heart sank with it. If struck at all, he immediately rallied and outran himself as well as his competitors. After getting out of the range of the firing and the shadow of the mountain, I saw indistinctly our cavalrymen along the side of the road, and we bantered each other as I passed.
Farther on, at a toll-gate, I heard the voice of Tom Williamson. His ambulance had broken down and he was being assisted toward the house. I drew rein, but thought, "How can I help him? This horse must be well-nigh done for," and rode on. Since reaching the foot of the mountain the way had been open and everything on it moving for life. But again the road was full, and approaching clatter, with the sharp reports of pistols, brought on another rush, and away we went—wagons, wounded men, negroes, forges, ambulances, cavalry—everything.
This in time subsided and, feeling ashamed, I turned back to look after my wounded, my horse as reluctant as myself, and expecting every moment the sound of the coming foe. A sudden snort and the timid step of my nervous steed warned me of breakers ahead. Peering through the darkness I saw coming toward me, noiseless and swift as the wind, an object white as the driven snow. "What," I asked myself, "are ghosts abroad, and in such a place? Is Gettysburg giving up her dead so soon?" But, as the thing met me, a voice cried out, "Is that you, Ned? Is that you? Take me on your horse. Let me get in the saddle and you behind." For a moment I was dumb, and wished it wasn't I. The voice was the voice of Lieutenant Brown, the same whom I had seen undermined by the shell at Gettysburg, and who had not put a foot to the ground until now. Barefooted, bareheaded; nothing on but drawers and shirt—white as a shroud! The prospect that now confronted me instantly flashed through my mind. First, "Can this horse carry two?" Then I pictured myself with such a looking object in my embrace, and with nothing with which to conceal him. There were settlements ahead, daylight was approaching, and what a figure we would cut! It was too much for me, and I said, "No, get on behind," feeling that the specter might retard the pursuing foe. But my tall horse solved the difficulty. Withdrawing my foot from the stirrup, Brown would put his in and try to climb up, when suddenly the horse would "swap ends," and down he'd go. Again he would try and almost make it, and the horse not wheeling quickly enough I would give him the hint with my "off" heel. My relief can be imagined when an ambulance arrived and took Brown in. I accompanied him for a short distance, then quickened my pace and overtook the train. Presently another clatter behind and the popping of pistols. Riding at my side was a horseman, and by the flash of his pistol I saw it pointing to the ground at our horses' feet.
Reaching the foot of a hill, my horse stumbled and fell as if to rise no more. I expected to be instantly trampled out of sight. I heard a groan, but not where the horse's head should have been. Resting my feet on the ground, thus relieving him of my weight, he got his head from under him and floundered forward, then to his feet and away. Farther on, a swift horse without a rider was dashing by me. I seized what I supposed to be his bridle-rein, but it proved to be the strap on the saddle-bow, and the pull I gave came near unhorsing me.
The pursuit continued no farther. Not having slept for two days and nights, I could not keep awake, and my game old horse, now wearied out, would stagger heedlessly against the wheels of moving wagons. Just at dawn of day, in company with a few horsemen of our battalion, I rode through the quiet streets of Hagerstown, thence seven miles to Williamsport.
The wounded of our battalion had all been captured. A few, however, were not carried off, but left until our army came up. Some of the cooks, etc., escaped by dodging into the brush, but many a good horse and rider had been run down and taken. At Williamsport I exchanged horses with an infantryman while he was lying asleep on a porch, and had completed the transaction before he was sufficiently awake to remonstrate.
We were now entirely cut off from our army, and with what of the wagons, etc., that remained were at the mercy of the enemy, as the Potomac was swollen to a depth of twenty feet where I had waded a year before. Most of the horses had to be swum over, as there was little room in the ferry-boats for them. The river was so high that this was very dangerous, and only expert swimmers dared to undertake it. Twenty dollars was paid for swimming a horse over, and I saw numbers swept down by the current and landed hundreds of yards below, many on the side from which they had started. I crossed in a ferry-boat on my recently acquired horse, having left my faithful old charger, his head encased in mud to the tips of his ears, with mingled feelings of sadness and gratitude.
A great curiosity to understand this battle and battlefield induced me to visit it at the first opportunity, and in 1887, twenty-four years after it was fought, I, with Colonel Poague, gladly accepted an invitation from the survivors of Pickett's division to go with them to Gettysburg, whither they had been invited to meet the Philadelphia Brigade, as their guests, and go over the battlefield together. After our arrival there, in company with two officers of the Philadelphia Brigade, one of Pickett's men and an intelligent guide, I drove over the field. As a part of our entertainment we saw the Pickett men formed on the same ground and in the same order in which they had advanced to the charge. Farther on we saw the superb monuments, marking the location of the different Federal regiments, presenting the appearance of a vast cemetery. The position held by the Federals for defense was perfect. Its extent required the whole of the Confederate army present to occupy the one line they first adopted, with no troops to spare for flanking. Its shape, somewhat like a fish-hook, enabled the Federal army to reinforce promptly any part that was even threatened. Its terrain was such that the only ground sufficiently smooth for an enemy to advance on, that in front of its center, was exposed throughout, not only to missiles from its front, but could be raked from the heights on its left. And, in addition to all this, the whole face of the country, when the battle was fought, was closely intersected with post and rail and stone fences.
