Captain Shannon was instructed by General Hood at Atlanta to select twenty-five or thirty men out of the regiment and operate inside of Sherman’s lines all the time, getting information, and punishing marauders wherever found engaged in their nefarious business of robbing and burning homes.
Shannon’s selection of the men he had with him soon won for him and his scout a reputation with our army, and especially with the enemy, second to no scout ever sent out by any army. Mosby’s exploits in Virginia have been considered most wonderful achievements for any small body of men. The operations of Shannon’s scouts have never been written, but where they were known, surpassed anything ever heard of.
Immediately after recognizing this man, coming over from the field, we hunted up Captain Shannon and reported to him our work of the day before, when he stated he was going to send these prisoners to headquarters and suggested that I make my report to General McLaws by the lieutenant in charge and that we go back with him, as he expected to go over the same ground that we had passed over the day before. This we were very willing and anxious to do, having never been in any engagement with him.
Shannon made it a rule that wherever he struck the enemy he would charge them at once and when he found they were too strong for him he would run out and leave them, sometimes drawn up in line of battle, shelling the woods after he was gone. As soon as ready, Shannon moved out with our little party in the rear, they having better horses than ours, as they managed by some means, to keep in fresh horses all the time.
One of the first places we stopped to inquire proved to belong to a very intelligent old Rebel lady, who reported that an officer and a private and a negro soldier had just left her house, the negro driving her buggy, carrying off a lot of fine dress goods and silverware and valuables in the buggy and the others having threatened to hang her if she failed to tell where her money was, forcing her to give up about a hundred dollars in gold and several thousand dollars in Confederate bonds. She told Captain Shannon, “If you will just hurry up, you will catch up with them,” which we did, in about two miles from there. The first one of the party caught up with was the negro soldier driving the horse and buggy, when a member of the advance guard rode up by the side of him and shot him out of the buggy. It seemed as though the ball of his big pistol sent his body about five feet on the roadside, which made the scout smile, looking back at us.
At a house about a quarter of a mile ahead of us, we found two horses hitched, which turned out to belong to the lieutenant and the private, who had taken the old lady’s money. Shannon called back, “Don’t but two of you stop here.” A couple of Shannon’s men threw their bridle reins over the fence and rushed into the house, when immediately afterwards we heard pistols rattle in that house. We then continued on this road to where it enters the main county road, running parallel with the Goldsboro & Weldon Railroad. Just before reaching the main county road Captain Shannon halted us, when he went forward, looked up and down the road, came back, commanded, “Form fours and charge!” I don’t think I ever saw men going into a charge like Shannon’s men, all breaking ranks, trying to get to the front, not knowing whether they were charging a small body of thirty or fifty men or a whole brigade until they got into the main county road, which disclosed about sixty or seventy mounted infantry with their guns swung on their backs, at the mouth of the lane, drinking and talking. The head of Shannon’s column entered the body of the Yankees, shooting their way in among them. All offered to surrender, throwing up their hands with only one gun fired by them and that by a man about to enter a swamp below the field, firing back at us over his shoulder. These cowardly devils were not soldiers, only in name, they were a band of highwaymen and plunderers in the uniform of the United States and the most of them loaded down with plunder of every description.
We next proceeded on the main road towards Pikesville, taking a batch of prisoners along with us, guarded by only two or three of Shannon’s scouts. We found these plunderers at every house on the way to Pikesville, a distance of five or six miles, and also in the town. Pikesville was a town of about fifty or seventy-five inhabitants, a blacksmith shop, store and postoffice, railroad station and a few residences. On entering the town our party became very much scattered, as we found Federals in nearly every house. A party of about six or eight on horseback tried to escape, when I, with two or three of Shannon’s boys, started after them, capturing the whole bunch.
Returning to town I noticed the house where we stopped the day before and had such a tirade of abuse from the woman, of which Shannon’s boys with me, knew nothing. I suggested to them to let us go by that house and get a drink of water. The prisoners begged for water also. Riding up to the house, the door opened and my good lady of the day before put in her appearance, when I said to her, “Now, run and get your friends some drinking water; they are very thirsty.” “No,” she said, “I wouldn’t give them a drink of water to save their lives. Come in, sir, and see what they did in my house.” I told her that I did not care to see it, but to run and get some water for her friends, when she again started to abuse the prisoners. I told her she must stop that, they were our prisoners and could not be abused by her.
After getting together the prisoners taken in this town and leaving about a half dozen men to guard them, somewhere near a hundred, we started out on a short scout on the road we had run over after the parties trying to make their escape. When about a mile and a half from town in a straight lane, having very high rail fences on both sides, we met about eighty or a hundred more, evidently on their way to town. The head of their column halted, viewing one of their dead bodies lying in the road, one of the men that was killed by our little party running after them, trying to make their escape.
I forgot to mention when starting out on this last scout that I told Shannon our party wanted to move in the advance guard, as we had hardly got a shot, his men always keeping ahead of us and we did not want to go back to the regiment and say we had been with Shannon’s scouts unable to do any effective service. Captain Shannon replied, “All right; go ahead and report to Bill Smith,” who was a first lieutenant and always commanded the advance guard. When within about two hundred yards of this column, viewing the body, I asked Smith, as he was moving us quite rapidly, “What are you going to do; are you going to charge these fellows?” He said, “Come on; come on.” I looked back and saw Shannon coming up in a lope with about fifteen or eighteen men, then noticed the Federal column getting restless and probably four or five of them break, when I said to Smith, “Now is our time,” and we drove ahead, scattering the whole business, capturing a number of prisoners, besides a number left in the road.