He checked the whole division, of course, to protect the rear and we thus checked his raid. I was in the rear line of the battle and didn’t see the hottest of the fight.
We were right at a house and as some one brought some prisoners by taking them to the rear, an old lady came out and saw the blue uniforms and began crying, and said: “Don’t kill any of them blues!” One fellow said: “I’m going to kill every d——n rascal I can.” She just fell down on the ground and said: “I’ve got a boy in the blues and I don’t want you to kill him.” I felt sorry for her and went to her and told her I was sorry she had a son in the yankee army. “Oh! he is not a yankee,” she said, “he is with Mr. Wiser’s folks.” They were called the Louisa Blues and the old lady thought any one having on blue clothes might be her boy.
About one o’clock the artillery began firing near Chancellorsville, about three or four miles from us, but Wm. Henry Lee held his position to keep Stoneman in check.
Shortly after nightfall Jackson was reconnoitering between his men and Hooker’s army, and had given orders to his outposts to fire on the first sound or man they saw or heard, and they not knowing he was out there, fired on him and mortally wounded him.
The next morning Gen. J. E. B. Stewart took command of Jackson’s division. Stewart began his march that morning and ordered the band to play his favorite: “The Old Gray Horse Jumped Over the Elephant.” He and one of his aids sang the tune, to other words, though. They were: “Old Joe Hooker Get Out of the Wilderness.”
Stewart followed Hooker and drove him across the Rappahannock. We 30 fellows, who hadn’t gotten to our company yet, got supper and breakfast among the citizens, and Wm. H. Lee sent us on to Orange, C. H. Here we found some more boys, who like ourselves, hadn’t found the command they belonged to yet. There were about 70 of us by this time. Some of them new men coming in, prisoners returning with their horses, like I was, and some coming back who had been on sick furloughs, etc.
We got rations here and laid down in the woods where the infantry had been camping and the next morning when we awoke the snow was falling in flakes more like biscuits, than snow flakes. If it had been biscuits it would have had to snow some, or we would have eaten it just as fast it fell.
I was about the first one to wake and I jumped up and shouted “Hurrah for Jeff. Davis.” Campbell, of Co. G. Bedford County, shouted back “Hurrah for H—.” Several fellows had to smile, when Campbell made his reply. I told Campbell I had always heard a bad beginning made a good ending, and when March came in like a lion it went out like a lamb. He said “yes, but this is the first of May and it is coming in like the devil, and I reckon it will go out like h—.” This caused laughter generally, and everybody was soon up and our fires started for breakfast.
We went into town after breakfast and orders had come to send all the men on to Culpepper C. H. Here we joined our command and found that none of our Co., had been killed at Chancellorsville. It had been about six weeks since I’d been with the Co., only the one night, before I started for my horse, after being captured.
Norman Hayth was our cook at this time and when the other members of mess got back from picket duty one day he had a lot of beef cooked, that was highly flavored with garlic. Not one of the boys in the mess could eat it, but me, so I traded each of them some other part of my supper for their beef and ate all eight of the rations. They all said I’d die before morning. I told them I’d come nearer dying from not getting enough beef than too much. Joe Shaver was sick and we put him in a tent near by and John Q. H. Thrasher was taking care of him. Well in the night I woke up and the garlic had gotten in my head so that I was sneezing and gaging and John heard me and hallooed to the boys to see what was the matter with that man. They soon found I was the fellow in trouble, but they all laughed and said that’s the man with the 8 rations of beef. He’ll come. Such a time as I had with that garlic for a while, I told them I’d invented a separator to separate the garlic from the meat. By this time a lot of boys was awake and shouting and laughing, soldier like, and the Capt. had to call us to order before the fun stopped. I didn’t get sick at all but the garlic just filled my head almost like an overdose of snuff would I imagine.