We heard there was a garrison of men at Moore Field, about 30 miles from where we were, and some of our boys were sent over to capture them. They were paroled, when captured, and allowed to return home until exchanged.
When we moved camp next, we stopped in a nice piece of level land, just where a creek ran into the Potomac. We were near the head of the Potomac, so it wasn’t a very large stream. The man who owned the land, lived near in a fine dwelling and had plenty of everything around him. Col. Munford sent Capt. Cary Breckinridge, the ordinance Serg., Morris Guggenheimer, and Beverly Whittle and myself, down to the house to protect the house and its inmates. This was always done, if the citizens asked for protection.
We had saved the leaf fat from the fat sheep and cattle, until we had nearly a 2-bushel sack full. I thought this would be a good time to render it into tallow, so I took it down to the house and got one of the ladies to help me, and in a little while I had more than a bushel of tallow, moulded in maple sugar moulds. We were in a regular maple sugar country. All the people had big kettles and regular equipments for making it. We were too early for the season, but we got some that was left from the year before. We kept our tallow to use about making gravy or putting in our bread, and I ate it sometimes, if I got too awfully hungry. The other boys couldn’t stand to eat it, but I could eat anything then, rather than starve.
When we left this camp, thirty of us were sent to Buck Horn Mill, to hold any meal or flour they might have, until the command came. There were dozens of pairs of buck horns tacked on the mill. The country abounded in deer. We found very little in the mill, and we hadn’t been there long, until one of our companies came after us, to get what was in the mill, and brought a dispatch telling us to go to the top of Droop Mountain and go on picket duty on the Parkersburg and Harrisonburg road.
We got there about sun-down, and asked a man living there, if he could give us provision and keep the men, while not on duty. He was in sympathy with the South and did all he could for our comfort. I went out on the first watch and when my 2 hours were out, I came back and asked the man why, did he suppose, my horse was so restless when I was out, that I didn’t see anything. He said it was deer that she saw or smelt. He said they were there by the dozens. One of our men shot one, while up there. We saw the tracks everywhere the next morning, but they had all gone back to the woods.
The next day we went on farther toward Highland Co. Our next stop was near a place called Franklin and some of the officers had some Confederate money and they bought a few of the beautiful cattle and sent them home.
We passed a stillhouse on our next move and all the boys got some whiskey. That night, after the majority of us were asleep, we heard some one coming along shouting and singing, and it proved to be Col. Breckinridge’s colored waiting boy, Griffin Hawkins, just drunk enough to be “mouthy.” I said, Griff, is that you? He said: “Yes Sir. Hurrah for you.” Then he began calling the roll: “Ammen, Marcus; Bowyer, G. F.; Bowyer, Wm.; Cahoon, C. C.,” and on until he called us all. Then he said: “Geneman, you is de bravest men we is got. We’s goin’ to drive dem d—d Yankees clear away, presently, and den I’s gwine home to see my Hannah Jane. I’s gwine to tell her:
‘Roses is red,
Violets is blue,
Sugar am sweet