“I just wrote under it, on the same piece of paper, ‘Yes, with pleasure;’ signed my name, and sent it back to him.”
At ten o’clock the same night they started. It was Sunday, the 14th of September, the day of the battle of South Mountain. The party consisted of twenty-two hundred cavalry and a number of mounted civilians who took advantage of the expedition to escape from the town before it was surrendered. Lieutenant Speaker and Colonel Davis rode side by side at the head of the column. They crossed on the pontoon bridge, which formed the military connection between Harper’s Ferry and Maryland Heights, and turned up the road which runs between the canal and the Heights, riding at full charge along the left bank of the Potomac. It was a wild road; the night was dark; only the camp-fires on the mountain were visible; and there was no sound but the swift clatter of thousands of galloping hoofs, and the solitary rush of the Potomac waters.
Near a church, four miles from the Ferry, Speaker and Davis, who were riding ahead of the party, were challenged by the Rebel pickets.
“Who goes there?”
“Friends to the guard.”
“What command?”
“Second Virginia Cavalry,” said Colonel Davis,—which was true, the Second Virginia Union Cavalry being of the party, while the Second Virginia Rebel Cavalry was also in the vicinity. “Who are you?”
“Louisiana Tigers.”
“All right. We are out scouting.”
“All right,” said the pickets.