Torbert had the divisions of Merritt and Custer, and in the morning he attacked Rosser. After a hard fight of about two hours Rosser had received his "drubbing," losing eleven pieces of artillery, several wagons, and three hundred prisoners.
We started on our march at ten o'clock, and encamped near Strasburg, remaining there one day, and then moved to the north bank of Cedar Creek, and went into position just off the pike on the extreme left of the Nineteenth Corps. Crook (Eighth Corps) went into position on the left of the pike joining the left of the Nineteenth Corps, his right advanced some hundred and fifty yards beyond our position. The Sixth Corps had started for Port Royal, to rejoin the Army of the Potomac, while Merritt's cavalry was on the extreme right of our line.
Our cavalry destroyed all the mills and crops in the valley as we fell back, and gathered in all the live stock, so that Early could not subsist his army in the valley. Early was at Fisher's Hill on the morning of the 13th, just the same, but probably brought his rations with him. We occupied this position until the morning of the 19th. In the meantime the Sixth Corps had come back and taken position in rear of the Nineteenth Corps. Sheridan had been called to Washington, which left Wright in command.
At break of day on the 19th, three of Early's divisions surprised Crook's camp and stampeded his whole command. Our battery, being on the extreme left of the Nineteenth Corps, were the first troops to receive their attention after the Eighth Corps had been swept away.
We had orders to have our battery hitched up at daylight, and we had just completed the task when we heard a volley of musketry on our left. We fired four rounds, just to make a noise and wake up the camp, not yet realizing just what had happened on our left.
Lieut. Gray hurriedly gave orders to have the tents struck and everything in readiness to move. In a few minutes we saw a line coming over the hill on our left, and making sure they were not our troops, we opened on them, but after firing for a few minutes, Gen. Emory dashed up and ordered us to stop firing, as they were some of our men, and Lieut. Gray was told to always look out before he commenced firing. At this moment Lieuts. Chase and Bonn came up, and Chase took command.
In the two or three minutes that had elapsed since we had stopped firing, the line of infantry that we had driven behind the brow of the hill, now opened on us, and in a few seconds we had orders to "give it to them." We had just opened on them as Gen. Wright rode up. He asked Emory "What is the matter?" and Emory replied, "Early has surprised us—Crook's corps has gone." Wright quickly took in the situation, and started off.
We had warm work before us, the enemy's line of infantry on our left having a notion of charging us, but as they came over the ridge we had very nearly a complete flank fire on them, and our left section commenced using canister. The right of their line was driven back over the ridge, but the left was swinging up parallel with the pike, which gave them a flank fire on our battery. We were lucky in having three or four loads of hay piled up just in rear of the limbers and on a line with the caissons on the extreme left of the battery, this pile of hay stopping many of the bullets from our left.
At this time the fourth brigade, second division, Nineteenth Corps, swung into position on our left. The smoke and fog was quite thick, and they did not open fire for some minutes thinking that the line in their front was some of the Eighth Corps falling back. Their mistake was discovered, and none too soon, for the enemy made a dash for our guns, but the line on our left had their guns loaded, and poured a volley at them which checked their onward rush.