[2] In New Orleans it was known as "Butler's Dandy Regiment"; for it was then better dressed than any other. It wore dark blue, which Birge had procured through his uncle, Buckingham, the war governor of Connecticut. At the siege of Port Hudson it had distinguished itself above all other regiments by furnishing as volunteers nearly one-fourth of the celebrated "Storming Column" of one thousand men called for by General N. P. Banks the second day after the disastrous assault on that fortress (June 14, 1863). Birge was selected by Banks to lead the forlorn hope.
[3] Six thousand is Gordon's statement in his Reminiscences, page 320.
CHAPTER II
At Winchester—On the Road thence to Tom's Brook, New Market, and Staunton.
There were two battles that Monday between Sheridan and Early, the first indecisive, though bloody, a drawn game; the second, after a comparative lull of several hours, a fierce struggle in which the whole front of the Sixth, Nineteenth, and Crook's Corps simultaneously advanced, and Torbert's Cavalry, arriving at last after their unaccountable delay upon our extreme right, made a magnificent charge crumpling up all the enemy's left. The victory was real, but not so complete as it should have been. Sheridan ought to have captured or destroyed the whole of Early's army. Instead, he had left them an open line of retreat. He took only five pieces of artillery, nine battle-flags, and some twelve or fifteen hundred prisoners; and, to use his own words, "sent the Confederates whirling up the valley."
In the recoil of Gordon's brilliant charge of six thousand about noon, we prisoners were swept along into Winchester, and then locked in the old Masonic Hall. The sociable guards took pains to emphasize the statement that George Washington, "glorious rebel" they called him, had presided as Grand Master in that very room!
After several hours we heard a great noise in the streets. Looking out we saw men, women, children, moving rapidly hither and thither, the current for the most part setting toward the southwest. The din increased; the panic became general; the Union Army was advancing on Winchester!
We were hustled into the street now filled with retreating hundreds, and were marched rapidly along the turnpike toward the setting sun. The road crowded with artillery, army wagons, common carriages, all pouring along in the stampede; a formidable provost guard enclosing us prisoners in a sort of hollow column; cavalry in front, flank, and rear; the fields on either side swarming with infantry, the whole of Early's army in retreat, we apparently in the middle of it; Sheridan's guns still booming in our rear—such was the scene as we two or three hundred prisoners were driven on. Our mingled emotions can be better imagined than described. The bitter regret that we had not been slain; the consciousness that we had done our whole duty in facing unflinchingly the storm of shot and shell, never retreating an inch; the evident respect and even courtesy with which I was personally treated; the inspiring certainty that our army was victorious, the unspeakable mortification of being ourselves prisoners of war!—we sorely needed all our philosophy and all our religion to sustain us.