After our arrival in Winchester the "grape vine" service was again brought into requisition and rumors were current that we were going into winter quarters. But this was not "Stonewall Jackson's Way." His headquarters were in Winchester. Bath and Romney, in his department, were occupied by Federal troops and he determined to oust them. On Jan. 1, '62, our division, with Ashby's cavalry, began the march to Bath. It was a bright, warm day, with a touch of spring in the air. On the evening of the 3rd it began to snow and for thirty-one days the sun did not show his face again. If any reader of these memories should be disposed to question the accuracy of this statement, I can only say that it is so written in the chronicles of the First Georgia Regiment as recorded in my journal for the month named. That evening the wagons failed to reach our camp and our supper was confined to a single course—parched corn. Not relishing a repetition of the menu for breakfast, I dropped out of the ranks soon after the march began and tramping across the freshly fallen snow to a residence not far from the roadside, I found a trio of pretty Virginia girls engineering the first cooking stove I had ever seen. Reared in a country home and accustomed to rely for my daily bread on the culinary skill of old "Aunt Hannah," the presiding genius of an old-fashioned kitchen fire place six feet wide, where, with the tact born of long experience, she piled the ruddy coals on the biscuit oven lid, or fried in a skillet the home-made sausage and spare rib with home made lard, or broiled on a gridiron the juicy beefsteak, or piled the burning "chunks" under the mammoth kettle that hung from the crane, while from its cavernous depths the air was laden with the aroma of ham and cabbage, this innovation on old-time methods was something of a revelation. But its novelty did not diminish the relish with which I hid away in my empty anatomy the steaming pan cakes dished out by fair and shapely hands to a squad of hungry soldier, one of whom, as Bill Arp would say, I was glad to be which.
On the morning of Jan. 4th we were halted in front of Bath, while a portion of the division was deployed on the left of the road for an attack upon the enemy. As the line of battle advanced through the snow, over a mountain ridge, and in plain view of us, Capt. Sam Crump, who had seen service in Mexico, said: "Well, boys, the ball will open now in fifteen minutes." I was only a stripling boy, with but limited experience as a soldier, and I remember with what reverent respect and implicit faith I received the utterance. But the ball did not open. The Federals retired without resistance to Hancock, Md., six miles away, and we hurried forward in pursuit. Reaching the hills overlooking the Potomac and the town after dark, we were standing in the road awaiting orders when a sudden flash illuminated the heavens and the regiment sank as one man into the snow. We thought we had struck a masked battery, but it was our own guns throwing grape shot into the woods in front. After standing an hour or two in the snow without fire we bivouacked and I slept, or tried to sleep, on three rails with their ends resting on a stump. We had built a fire of rails, a favorite army fuel in those days. I do not remember from what species of timber they were made, but I do recall the fact that it was a popping variety when subjected to heat. All through the night our sleep was disturbed by the necessity of rising at frequent intervals to extinguish our burning blankets, and one man had his cap nearly burned from his head before it awoke him.
Next morning Turner Ashby went over under flag of truce to demand the surrender of the town. During his absence on this mission it was rumored that he had been held as a prisoner and his cavalry were preparing to storm the town to secure his release. The report proved a fake and he returned, bringing Gen. Lander's refusal to comply. An artillery duel ensued. The Federal guns had to be elevated to reach our position and their balls striking the frozen ground would rebound. Some of the boys, who had played "town ball" at school would pretend to catch them, and would sing out: "Caught him out," when another would reply: "Don't count, 'twas second bounce." It seemed more like a frolic than a fight. That night I laid aside my shoes and found them next morning filled with snow, while my blanket was covered with an inch or two of the same white mantle. Water was scarce and I tried to secure enough for a cup of coffee by melting snow in a tin cup, but found it a tedious process.
On the morning of the 7th the force was withdrawn to operate against Romney. The weather at this time recalls an old rhyme learned in my boyhood, which fits the case better than any description I could give and which runs thus,
"First she blew,
Then she snew,
And then she thew,
And then she friz."
The roads were as slick as glass. The horses had to be rough-shod and the wheels rough-locked with chains to cut the frozen sleet and snow in descending the hills, and even with these precautions the horses would fall and be dragged to the bottom of the descent before a halt could be made. Twelve horses would be hitched to a single piece of artillery and details were made from each company to push the wagons up the hills. To men not inured to such hardships the experience was a pretty rough one and the criticisms of the winter campaign made by some of them would not look well in a Sunday school book. Osborne Stone's Presbyterian training would not allow him to use any cuss words, but I remember that his "dog-on-its" were frequent and emphatic. On January 8 we reached the "Cross Roads," and those who were pronounced by the surgeons unfit for further winter service were returned to Winchester. With them went the writer, to worry for four weeks with typhoid fever, while the command went on to Romney. Of the Romney trip I can not speak from personal knowledge, but from the accounts given by those who can, it was a repetition of the return from Hancock with its hardships, perhaps intensified.
Jackson accomplished his purpose, to drive the enemy from his department, though at the expense of a good deal of exposure and suffering to his men.
ASHBY AND JACKSON.
As hard as the service was, I am glad to have had the opportunity of sharing it with such a man as Turner Ashby. He was then a colonel of cavalry. Mounted on his milk white steed, with the form of an athlete; coal black hair, a silky brown beard reaching nearly to his waist and a velvety, steel-grey eye, he was, in soul as well as body, an ideal cavalier. His command embraced some of the best blood of Virginia and he and they were fit types of the Old South, worthy representatives of a civilization, that in culture, courtesy and courage, in honor and in honesty, the past had never equalled and the future will never repeat.
Jackson had not then developed the military genius that afterwards rendered him so famous. The campaign furnished but little field for generalship, but it gave evidence of one trait in his character—to halt at no obstacle in the accomplishment of a purpose to benefit the cause for which he fought. In personal appearance and bearing he and Ashby differed widely. Without grace as a rider, and indifferently mounted, there was nothing in his appearance to indicate or foreshadow the height to which he afterwards attained. And yet I can but cherish with pride the recollection that in this campaign I had the privilege of serving under one, who in the blood-stained years that followed "went down to a soldier's grave with the love of the whole world, and the name of Stonewall Jackson."