Total, 9 wounded and 1 captured.
CHAPTER IV.
The morning after the battle of Winchester the command was temporarily attached to the brigade of General George H. Steuart (composed of Virginians and North Carolinians,) of Edward Johnson’s division, and shortly after the whole of Ewell’s corps took up its line of March in the direction of Smithfield, where we arrived about dark, and went into camp for the night.
The next morning we resumed the march, our course shaped towards the Potomac, which there seemed but little doubt we were destined to cross, but with what object in view we had not the slightest conception. We crossed the Baltimore and Ohio railroad at Kearneysville, and then took the road leading to Shepherdstown. The day was intensely hot and the troops marched leisurely. By midday we went into camp about three miles from the river that separated us from our own beloved Maryland, and which we cherished a fond hope of crossing on the morrow.
It was whilst we lay here that I took advantage of the time afforded to pay a visit to the estimable family of the Hon. Alexander H. Boteler, whose beautiful residence was but a mile from our camp. I found Mrs. Boteler at home with her two accomplished and attractive daughters, and they vied with each other in their endeavors to make my visit an agreeable one.
Mrs. Boteler informed me that they had been subjected to all sorts of annoyances from the Yankee soldiery, and taking me to her chamber pointed out a bullet hole through a pane of glass in the window which had been fired by a thing in uniform whilst she was looking out into the yard, the ball passing through her hair and lodging in the ceiling.
It was late in the evening, and with many regrets, that I left this lovely family and their little paradise, and wended my way back to camp. Alas, all that is now left of that once sweet, happy home is a mass of ruins, for the brutal and relentless Hunter visited it soon afterwards and burnt it to the ground.
On the afternoon of the 18th of June we broke camp and moved up the road leading to Shepherdstown, through which village we passed amid the joyous shouts of the inhabitants, and were in a few minutes upon the banks of the Potomac, into which the men plunged waist deep, and began make their way to the longed-for shore. I wished I possessed the pencil of the artist to paint that scene, for it was one that will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
Upon reaching the Maryland shore the joy of her exiled sons baffled description. They shouted and screamed, and rolled upon the ground in the delirium of their joy, and to one not acquainted with the cause it would have seemed as though bedlam had been let loose, and in this Pandemonium I must confess our gallant brigade and battalion commanders played a conspicuous part, leaving out others of minor rank.
That night we encamped upon the banks of the river, and next morning passed through the town of Sharpsburg and halted upon the famous battle field.