Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-10-29
Civil War Stories
The Moorehe1d Raid.

passed through from 1851 to 1865 as
halcyon period, only productive of
| immense estates, shoulder-straps and
| personal honor and glory, are desired
| to read the subjoined narrative, writ
ten by an eyewitness
| About o'clock one night in Octo-
| Der, 1864, not long after the battle
OF Cedar Greek, we were startled by
the bugle at headquarters calling
boots and saddles" In twenty min
utes from the sounding of the call
we were in our saddles and leaving
camp in a southeasterly direction,
without the least idea of where we
were going or what we were going to
| do. When l say we, I mean the rank
and file of course the officers knew.
| About a mile from camp we halted,
and after short delay were joined by
the balance of our brigade-the Eighth
New York and Twelfth Pennsylvania
Cavalry.
All night we rode steadily forward,
not stopping until about an hour after
| daylight, when we halted long enough
| to give our horses q little corn and
boil coffee for ourselves; then into the
saddle and forward again. BY this
time we had learned that our destina-
ton was Moorefield, in the Luray val
ley, and our errand the surprise of
Rossers cavalry camp at that place.
| About noon we came to Brooks Gap,
! he fa fhA hoy
doah mountains. Soon after reaching
the summit Of the pass our scouts en-
countered half dozen bushwhaekers,
! one OF whom escaped, thus destroying
nearly all hope of our being able to
surprise their camp; but we pushed
on the faster until about o'clock In
| the afternoon, when we came in sight
| of Mooref1eld, but only clouds of smoke
showed where the rebel camp had
been. Not daring to delay to remove
their stores, they had set fire to them
and taken to the mountains. We drew
up on a level plain a short distance
from the town, and were informed
that we should remain a day or two
to rest our horses after our forced
march. When a regiment is halted
in the enemy's country the first
thought of the boys is of something
good to eat; something for a change
from salt pork and bareback.
It was no wonder, therefore, when
drove of hogs came strolling and
| grunting past that our boys were
seized with strong desire to make
their more intimate acquaintance. AS
we were not allowed to use our am
munition for such purposes, we tried
| little saber exercise on our visit
| ors. Now, imagine twenty-fi or thir-
ty men in hot pursuit Of hog, every
man doing his best to cripple the I'M
fortunate animal by a blow from his
saber-the hogs granting, squealing,
lacking and turning-they were just
| in good running order, those Of the
men not engaged in the pursuit cheer
ing on those who were-and you have
the scene. Sometimes a hog would
make a short turn and dart between
the legs of his would-be captOr, caus-
| ing him to perform evolutions not laid
down in any tactics. l remember that
one of the boys in my company caught
hog by the hind leg, under the i'm.
preston that he could hold him; but
after being dragged full length through
| the mud for several rods at the rate
Of forty miles an hour, concluded that
he didn't care for fresh pork in that
way.
The owner of the nogs was an old
| lady of the extreme secession type, liv-
| ing just in the edge of the town, and
the next morning she came to our
Colonel, boiling over with wrath
against the nasty Yankees who would
rob a poor woman of her last hog"
and demanding pay for said hogs in
! terms more forcible than elegant.
Colonel Reed of course, expressed his
deep sympathy for her loss. But, my
dear madam said he, sit couldn't
have been my boys; they wouldn't do
such thing. 1t must have been those
| thievish Pennsylvanians over there;
you just go over and state your case
| to their Colonel" In about twenty
minutes she came back again, madden
than before. She had been to the Colo
mel of the Pennsylvania regiment, and
! he was positive that it couldn't have
been his men, and had sent her to
! the Colonel of the Eighth New York
and he had fatty denied that his men
would steal hogs, and had told her to
come back to the Twenty-second New
! York and make them pay for that
| pork And it's no use higglin' round,
some Of you-uns has got to pay me
| twenty dollars for them hogs" Colo
| mel Reed finally sent her to the COM
missary, and l believe she got a re-
cei2t for the hogs, with a promise to
pay when peace was declared
On the morning of the second day
after our arrival at Moorefield we
started on our return march. We had
Il