Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1897-03-11

in the long current of our human his
tory at the mention of all beautiful
and heroic deeds.
The incident took place in July,
1864, just after Early's return from
Washington, and when his advance
force under Ramseur was near Win
chester. On the afternoon of the goth
of that month General Ramseur, the
gallant, the noble, the heroic Ramseur,
who died, as he had lived, a fearless
soldier and a stainless gentleman, re-
ceived information from Gen. Waugh
an that Gen. Averill was at Steven
sons Depot, a few miles northeast Of
the town, with a force so small as to
render an attack upon him almost cer-
tain to result in his capture. Acting
upon this information, Ramseur put
his troops in motion, advanced to at
tack Averill, and soon the forces on
both sides were engaged in an obsti-
nate conflict, Ramseur having moved
with too little caution in consequence
of the reported inferiority of his Oppo-
nent.
The result was a serious repulse by
Averill's force, the loss of four pieces
ofartllery, the death of Colonel Board,
of the Fifty-eighth Virginia, and the
wounding OF Generals Lewis and Lily.
Many of the command, officers and
privates, besides these gentlemen, were
killed and wounded. When Ramseur
fell back, as he was compelled to do so
as to prevent himself from being flank
ed by large force approaching from
Berryville, he left the ground covered
with his dead and wounded. lie re-
tired through Winchester, joined Early
at Newtown, and Winchester was again
in the hands of the Federalists.
Winchester throughout the war
meant, most of all, "the women Of Win
chester" 1t was this noble body of
high-souled and heroic women who
now looked with eyes full Of regret
and longing upon Ramseur's disaP-
pearing columns, and with sadness un-
utterable toward tie battlefield near
by, whereon so many of their dear
Southern defenders were lying in their
blood.
With the women of Winchester to
see suffering was to attempt courage
ously to relieve it. For long years
they had been accustomed to the war
of artillery, the crash of small arms,
to nursing the sick, succonn8 the
wounded and binding up the bruised
forms, and bleeding beneath the char
lot wheels of the terrible demon-war.
Have we not seen them after Kerns-
town, hanging with sobs over the death
trenches, bearing off the sorely hurt,
facing with tears of noble scorn the
enemies who were the masters Of the
moment?
That was in 1862, and be sure that
in 1864 the long years Of soul-crush-
ing war had not abated one particle
of that proudly defiant, that tenderly
merciful spirit which through all COM
ing time will remain the glory of their
names and the pride ofthose who draw
their blood from those true daughters
of Virginia.
OF the incident which we propose to
relate we have had an account derived
from valued friend, herself one Of
the nobly charitable young ladies Of
the old border town; also, another
statement from an unknown CORE
spondent living in the neighborhood of
the battlefield. Upon these our mar
ratiye is based.
Night had come, and a number of
ladies who had obtained permission to
perform their pious duties from the
Federal officer in command at Win
chester reached the battlefield. 1t
was one of those marvellous nights Of
July, 1864, when the heavens seemed
all ablaze with the glory Of the full
orbed moon. The field, covered with
dead and dying, slept in the light OF
this great moon, and the Federal sur
geons were busy at their painful duty
of famputating limbs, probing and bind
ing up wounds, deposlting the sufferers
in ambulances and attending as far as
possible to the painful calls Of each.
A battlefield after a hard fight is a
spectacle so sad that he who has looked
upon it once never wishes to behold 1t
again, and the saddest Of all the ter
rible features of such scenes, perhaps,
is the impossibility Of promptly at
tending to the wants ofall. Your arm
may be shattered by bullet, but your
neighbor's leg is torn to pieces by a