THE CONFEDERATE RETREAT FROM GETTYSBURG.

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And yet in the darkness was our safety, for no enemy would dareattack where he could not distinguish friend from foe. We knew thatwhen day broke upon us we should be harassed by bands of cavalry hangingon our flanks. Therefore our aim was to go as far as possible under coverof the night. Instead of going through Chambersburg , I decided to leavethe main road near Fairfield after crossing the mountains, and take “ a nearcut ” across the country to Greencastle, where daybreak on the morning ofthe 5th of July found the head of our column. We were now twelve orfifteen miles from the Potomac at Williamsport , our point of crossing intoVirginia .

Here our apprehended troubles began. After the advance — the 18th Vir-ginia Cavalry — had passed perhaps a mile beyond the town, the citizens tothe number of thirty or forty attacked the train with axes, cutting the spokesout of ten or a dozen wheels and dropping the wagons in the streets. Themoment I heard of it I sent back a detachment of cavalry to capture everycitizen who had been engaged in this work, and treat them as prisoners ofwar. This stopped the trouble there, but the Union cavalry began to swarmdown upon ns from the fields and cross-roads, making their attacks in smallbodies, and striking the column where there were few or no guards, and thuscreating great confusion. I had a narrow escape from capture by one ofthese parties — of perhaps fifty men that I tried to drive off with canisterfrom two of McClanahan’s guns that were close at hand. They wouldperhaps have been too much for me, had not Colonel Imboden, hearing thefiring turned back with his regiment at a gallop, and by the suddennessof his movement surrounded and caught the entire party.

To add to our perplexities still further, a report reached me a little aftersunrise, that the Federals in large force held Williamsport . I did not fullycredit this, and decided to push on. Fortunately the report was untrue.After a great deal of desultory fighting and harassments along the road dur-ing the day, nearly the whole of the immense train reached Williamsport onthe afternoon of the 5th. A part of it, with Hart’s battery, came in nexthay, Gleneral Young having halted and turned his attention to guarding thei'oad from the west with his cavalry. We took possession of the town toconvert it into a great hospital for the thousands of wounded we had broughtfrom G-ettysburg. I required all the families in the place to go to cookingh>r the sick and wounded, on pain of having their kitchens occupied for thatPurpose by my men. They readily complied. A large number of surgeonsbad accompanied the train, and these at once pulled off their coats and wentto work, and soon a vast amount of suffering was mitigated. The bodies ofa few who had died on the march were buried. All this became necessarybecause the tremendous rains had raised the river more than ten feet abovethe fording stage of water, and we could not possibly cross then. There weretwo small ferry-boats or “flats” there, which I immediately put into requisi-tion to carry across those of the wounded, who, after being fed and havingtheir wounds dressed, thought they could walk to Winchester. Quite a largedumber were able to do this, so that the “ flats ” were kept running all the time.

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