Lieut. Chiswell and his party were hard pressed, and with the greatest difficulty effected their escape.
At one time Chiswell’s horse fell with him, and rolling over lay prone upon his leg, but he managed to withdraw it, leaving his boot in the stirrup, and having gotten his horse up, the lieutenant took the boot in his hand, and though the Yankees were close upon him, he got clear. He says, “boots were boots” in those days, and he couldn’t think of losing his.
Col. White had frequently been called upon by General Lee to destroy the Rail Road bridges in rear of Meade’s army, in order that their supplies might, to some extent, be cut off; but such enterprises were very difficult and hazardous, more especially as he had no men who knew the country well enough to pilot him at night to the scene of operations. On several occasions he attempted to accomplish something in this way, but to no purpose; however, having learned something of the bridge over Pope’s Head creek, on the O. and A. Rail Road, he resolved to attempt its destruction, and with nineteen men of Companies A and C, he started in the evening from his camp in upper Loudoun, with John Davis of Fairfax, for his guide, and marching all night, camped about daylight on the Hatmark creek, below Fairfax C. H., where the company remained all day with nothing to eat but fox grapes; the enemy being so thick around that part of the country that the men would have been discovered if they had ventured out of the friendly shade of the pine woods.
When night came, the little party moved out, and passing Barnes’ mill on the Accotink, arrested the miller and carried him along with them.
On arriving within half a mile of the bridge, the Colonel, accompanied by Jack Dove, rode out to reconnoitre, finding a guard of four or five men on the bridge and a reserve of some twenty or more lying around a fire about a hundred yards from it. Returning to the command, the Colonel moved it forward, intending to charge and drive off the guards, but on reaching the bridge found they had already retired, but whether they had become alarmed at something they had heard, or, as a patrol, had passed during the time he was gone for his people, the Colonel could not determine, nor did he waste much time in speculations on the subject, but setting his men to work splitting and piling up rails on each end and in the middle of the bridge, they soon had a good lot of kindling ready to fire up, and after emptying a few canteens of coal oil on it, the fire was applied, and the boys withdrew a short distance and watched until the whole frame of the bridge was burning well, when they started on their return. It was long past midnight when they left the bridge, and consequently could not go far before daylight compelled them again to hide themselves, and here another day was spent with nothing but grapes to eat. Some wagon trains, from Fairfax C. H., passed them, and could have been easily captured, but this would have almost insured the capture of the whole party, and consequently they were permitted to drive on.
When dark came the third night, the now half-famished band started again, this time for the nearest point where rations could be obtained, and very soon they were being well fed by the good people of upper Fairfax, who, no matter how hard pressed they were themselves, always had something to divide with the Dixie boys, and no people in the whole Confederacy would more gladly share their last morsel with the Southern soldier, than these very ones whose homes were constantly overrun by the blue-coated gentry who looked upon all they had as lawful spoil for Uncle Sam, and treated all of them as if they were rebels only wanting arms and an opportunity to show their hand.
When the Colonel started on this expedition, he had left Major Ferneyhough in command of all the battalion except Capt. Myers and his company, and had instructed the latter to scout around the river country, mainly for the purpose of collecting a supply of long range guns, in which his command was always very deficient, and for which he had special use in a contemplated attack on Cole’s battalion. The Major moved the rest of the command to the old camp at the Trap, and here Major Cole paid him a visit, causing the whole thing to move at a quick march into the mountain, while Cole encamped for the night at Bellfield, and strange to say he only lost one or two pickets by the operation, whom “Moll” Green, of Co. B, accidentally came in contact with. As Cole was returning the next day he came near breaking up the blacksmith department, by capturing Jo. Conner and Wm. Horseman, who were at work shoeing horses at the Woodgrove shop. Several other soldiers were at the shop, but they made their escape.
Myers in the meantime had been scouting around in the neighborhoods of Hillsborough and Lovettsville, and the night Cole was at Bellfields, his party lay near Waterford, listening to the music of a party of infantry left at that place as a reserve for Cole in case he should need it.
What had been considered an impossibility the year before was now demonstrated to be perfectly feasible, and to the great discomfort of the border land both uniforms were daily seen by the citizens, and very frequently followed each other so rapidly that when not in actual chase, one party would scarcely be out of sight before the other would be demanding rations and horse-feed, and making awful threats against Rebels or Yankees as the case might be.
Not long after the bridge burning expedition the Colonel sent Capt. Dowdell with his company and a part of Co. A, under Lieut. Conrad, to look after Yankee scouting parties “between the hills,” as the country lying between the Blue Ridge and Short Hill from Hillsborough to the Potomac is called, while with seventeen of Co. A he started himself to arrest a notorious Yankee spy and guide, in Fairfax county, named Amey.