We hastened on, and, as we gained the higher ground, the rapid shots of a fierce engagement came to our ears from just over the ridge.
The fight was in the woods, and a hot one. We moved up, and were deployed, but soon all was confusion. The rebels seemed to be everywhere, and, after a brief struggle, it became every man for himself. We had but forty rounds of ammunition with us, and that was soon exhausted, when we learned that we were cut off from our train in the rear.
Sergeant John S. Wood and I were standing near a tree, with Private Jasper Barker between us, and Barker was shot down. We could see that we were largely outnumbered and that there was no well-regulated fight. About twenty-three of the fifty-six men in Company B had been killed or disabled and the rest had no more ammunition. The men on our flanks were melting away by death and retreat, and we finally gave it up and sought safety in the rear; but there was no escape, for we were completely surrounded.
Dodging around, and losing men by capture at every turn, the few of us left at last had to surrender to a little squad under Sergeant Davis. They rode down on us, yelling wildly and flourishing their sabres, but we gave up, with no casualties save the serious injury of Annan L. Silvey, who broke his gun across a tree when called upon to give it up, and who received a sabre stroke for his pains. Most of the others had done the same thing before the rebs came up, when it had been seen that capture was certain.
The sergeant let me keep my sword, but it was taken away later on.
We were marched along toward a corral which the rebels had made for their prisoners, and on the way we had to submit to involuntary trades with our captors for what they chose to give us in return for anything of ours which they saw and fancied.
One fellow made a grab for my hat, but his grasp was eluded with a quick motion and a "No you don't," but the latter remark had scarcely been uttered when an enormous fellow, who wore a big, greasy sombrero with flapping rim, reached out a hand that seemed as large as a small ham, with "By God, Yank, I will!"
And he did, his great, broad-rimmed hat being forced down over my ears with a force which made my head ache—at least I think it was the force, but my head ached steadily until that hat had been exchanged for another.
A rebel major came up, and, seeing our captors taking from the prisoners all personal property of value, remonstrated with the offenders, in many cases causing the purloined goods to be returned. He then offered to receive in trust any articles which any officer might see fit to deposit with him for safe keeping, and to give his receipt for them. This offer seemed to be so kind that a general rush was made to take advantage of it, and the major was soon loaded up with a general assortment of personal effects. There can be no doubt as to the safe keeping of the valuables, for they are still in his possession so far as known to the depositors.
The sergeant had not interfered with the promiscuous plundering, but he was inclined to be friendly, and we learned that the force that had captured us was a young army of 7000 mounted infantry that had been sent by Kirby Smith, after his defeat of Banks, to help in the effort to gather in General Steele.