Reminiscencies of a Confederate soldier of Co. C, 2nd Va. Cavalry

by Rufus H. Peck

We drove them all that day on toward Washington, not stopping to get food, and went into camp at nightfall.

Stewart and Hampton crossed the Potomac with their men at Seneca Falls in the night. When Gen. Hooker learned that Lee was going on toward Maryland, he took his men and tried to get in front of him, which he did. Eight packet boats had been sent up with provisions for Hooker’s army, and when they came into the locks not knowing we were there, we turned the wickets and let the water out and burned the boats. We had been marching four days without any provisions at all, so we took what we could in our haversacks, before burning the boats. We took the mules, 24 in number, on with us. We helped the woman and children from the boats and took their furniture out, as we didn’t want to destroy private property. It was hard to do then, with them all crying like they did, but such is war.

In a short distance from where we crossed the river, we came on a garrison of yankees at a place called West Minster and captured them all, without the loss of a man. We so completely surprised them that they surrendered without resistance. We went on to Hanover to capture a garrison there, but they learned of our coming and resisted us with right heavy loss to both sides. One of our young men, Walter Gilmore, was shot in the shoulder, as he was riding between Chas. Price and myself, as we were trying to get him to the rear, he was shot in the left eye, but we finally got to a house and asked the lady of the house to take care of him, while we went on and took the garrison. I never knew anything more of young Gilmore until the summer of 1911. I met him at New Port News at a reunion. He told me he was sent to a hospital in Baltimore by the Yankees and received the kindest of treatment and the best of medical aid and soon recovered.

We took our West Minster and Hanover prisoners on with us and our next stop was at Carlisle, Penn. All the provisions we had on this march, except what some of us got from the boats, was what we could beg from the citizens. Some of us nearly starved. Here we destroyed some of the public buildings in which food for the Yankees was stored. We threw hot shot a mile or so and wherever these hot balls would strike, they would set fire. Some of our men who were marching ahead of our Co. had set fire to Thad Stevens’ Iron Works in Penn. and as we passed and saw it burning I told the boys that was a bad move, that the Yankees would soon retaliate and do us more damage than we could do them, as so much of the fighting was done on southern ground.

We did this shelling with hot shot at night and continued marching all night. We still marched all the next day stopping occasionally for a little while to let our horses graze.

About noon we heard cannonading about Gettysburg. Gen. Lee had arrived Friday July 1st, with his whole army except Pickett’s division, which was coming from Chambersburg and Hampton’s and Stewart’s divisions of cavalry with which I made the trip. Lee had engaged the enemy Saturday and drove them back, but could not make a general charge, as these three divisions hadn’t arrived. Had these divisions been full numbered there would have been about 48,000 men. But of course a great many of different companies had been killed or disabled. For instance Co. C. the one to which I belonged, only had 64 men bearing arms when we left Va. a Co. was supposed to have 100 men, of course, and they were recruited at different times, but I remember we only had 64 then and other companies may have been cut down, also, so it would be hard to determine just how many men were in these three divisions. However there were so many that Lee waited until they arrived to bring on the general charge. We arrived Saturday evening July 2. As we had been marching so much and had so little rest since June 20, we all laid down in a stubble field and were soon fast asleep. I tied my horse’s halter strap to my gun sling and just left saddle and all on, and when I awoke the next morning, I was about 30 yds. farther down in the field than where I went to sleep. She had just dragged me on as she ate, but I was too dead asleep to know it. Before we got to sleep the enemy was firing a cannon every little while and every thing would be as visible as in day time. But it was a dark night and illuminations made it seem darker, of course, after disappearing, the shells would some time burst over us, but didn’t do us any harm.

Some of the boys heard the cannon all night at intervals, but I was too exhausted to hear a great deal.

At daylight the bugle sounded and we mounted our horses and went out to join the line of battle before having any breakfast. As our wagon train wasn’t with us, we hadn’t had any rations issued since the 20th of June and all we had was what citizens gave us. There were too many of us, for any one man to get much, so we thought of breakfast the first thing, when we awoke.

We were halted before reaching the line of battle, by Major Mason, one of Gen. Lee’s staff officers, and he called for one Capt. two Serg’s two Corporals and 30 private soldiers.

I was one of the private soldiers called out and Capt. Jas. Breckinridge was the commissioned officer called out. Major Mason took us then three or four miles out in the direction of Harrisburg, Penn. Major Mason then told Capt. Breckinridge to send a reliable soldier to an elevated point near by that overlooked the Harrisburg road for about a mile.