[8]
from ten or eleven until two, when there was a cessation until the cavalry attack about three, which resulted so disastrously.
I hope that, if they do withdraw any force to help Grant, we will go straight back, though I have hardly the face to see my friends again.
More disasters to record still.
I thought that we would certainly be successful at Fisher's Hill, but Providence has seen fit to order otherwise.
Spent Wednesday, 21st, in camp.
There was some brisk skirmishing on our lines that evening, but nothing serious.
Next morning a train of ordnance wagons came in from Staunton, bringing arms, accoutrements, and ammunition, which we very much needed.
I rode down to direct brigade ordnance officers to send for ordnance stores, and to see what was going on. Found skirmishing progressing, and presently some artillery firing commenced.
They fired at Massie's battery—which was on extreme left of our division, where General Ramseur had his Headquarters—from two directions, and I retired to the rear.
Sent one ordnance wagon nearer to the front, stopped at Major Whiting's Provst Guard awhile, and returned to camp between 3 and 4 o'clock. Not very long after I had dined, great excitement commenced by the cavalry with the led horses dashing in from a road coming in from the left, opposite to my camp, and saying that the Yankees were pursuing.
The extreme left of our lines was occupied by dismounted cavalry in breastworks; the position was very weak, and the men weaker, so that both General Lomax, who commanded the cavalry, and General Ramseur, considered that, if an attack was made against our left (which was very probable), it was very questionable whether it would be repulsed.
Not knowing that a bona fide attack had been made on our left, but thinking that a few Yankee cavalry had gotten in amongst the led horses grazing in the rear, I rode over to the back road to see what the real state of affairs was, Colonel Allen having meanwhile ordered the ordnance trains down towards the troops, following me soon himself.
I rode some two or three miles, and learned that 15 or 20 Yankee cavalry had come up to within 1 1/2 or 2 miles of the pike and created the stampede amongst the led horses.
I also saw a detachment of men who had been cut off when the attack was made on the left and had come back on the mountain.
I still, however, thought that the lines had been re-established, and placed little confidence in the report of the cavalry
