Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1881-12-10


followed so closely that the fugitives
had nc time to rest. The Sixth
Corps felt sick of fighting, and the
cavalry was not in the least disor-
ganized, but fully one half of Sheri-
dams army was routed and disarm-
ed.
EARLY'S MISTAKE.
Men of rank in Early's army point
out two grave mistakes he made ON
that day. Not a man should have
been permitted to plumber. After
the second camp was carried Early's
fighting force was reduced one-half
by dropping out to plumber. One
brigade could have collected every
thing worth taking and carried it to
Fishers Hill. The second mistake
was in the lengthy pursuit. After
Wright was driven, the panic would
have carried the Federal army seven
or eight miles without another
gun being fired. With his army
closed up he had the best defen-
sive positions in the valley, and he
could have held it against all odds.
But, flushed with success and con-
ceited with victory, the Confeder-
ates lost their organization in pur-
suit and plumber, and when brought
to bay at Newtown they had no
fight in them. They were driven
back almost as easy as they had
driven the Federals; routed wherev-
er they made a stand, and when
night come not a brigade of that ar
my could be found. Sheridan re-
took all his artillery, all his wagons,
all the plumber of the morning, all
the prisoners and thousands more,
and pushed the flying Confederates
until horses could no longer travel.
Strange battle {! Victory won, and
enough spoils captured to equip an
army of 10000 men-then defeat
and the loss of all.
IN THE BASIN AND BEYOND,
Leaning against the walls of the
old mill, the interior of which is full
of thrifty shrubs and vines, l look
down into a basin in the meadow in
which more than 1000 Federals
were confined as prisoners that day.
A dash of cavalry freed them all
and captured their guards. Across
the road where the old gray-haired
man sits on the farm house porch,
the sergeons cut and hacked and
sawed, and the yellow leaves of the
apple trees fell softly down upon the
dead and dying. A mile up the
pike, where a lone old woman rocks
to and fro at the door of her humble
home, the fields were covered with
blue and gray, the dusty pike was
blocked with corpses, and under the
pear tree in the yard the groans of
the wounded rose above the roar of
battle. Under the oaks on the hill
what? Nothing but the trenches in
which a thousand men were buried.
Futher down the pike it was the
same-back over the fields where the
camps slept that morning it was
worse.
ON THE HILLSIDE.
/ follow the breastworks of the
Sixth Corps Gro the stony fields,
into thickets and out, and here and
there are relics of the long past. A
piece of bone, an old canteen, a frag-
ment of shell, a rusty gun barrel, an
old bayonet, a heap of bullets, and
what not. And yet, as l stand on
the earthwords on which no grass
has ever yet taken root, l look down
on orchards laden with fruit, child
rem returning from school, the plow-
boy in the meadow fields, and hear
around me the soft notes of blue
bird and robin. Aye! as l look, the
plow-boy stops to pull from the fresh
turned earth, and hold up to my
sight, a grinning skull! Strange
grimness-strange peace!