A SLIGHT SCRIMMAGE.

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somewhere; and, in an organization not so thoroughly amenable to discipline as the Fourteenth, the consequences might have been serious. The trouble was between F and K. One company accused the other of stealing its rails, boards, etc. It is rather late in the day to inquire which was the accuser and which the accused. Those rails and boards were stolen in the first place, and it was a question of who did the second stealing. The aggrieved party clung to the legal maxim of "honor among thieves," and company spirit ran high. F was arrayed against K; and those who knew least of the origin of the trouble, were most furious in denunciation of the other company. They were ready to go in and have a row of some dimensions. The six subsequent weeks of campaigning took pretty much all of this subsidiary fighting vim out of those eager spirits. The row waxed to that dignity where the major-that was just before the right wing arrived-ordered the officers to settle it. When Major Gardiner gave an emphatic order, it was always found convenient to obey it. There was some backing down; and some rails changed hands again, though they were fearfully shrunken à la Old Claggetts.

August 20 the Fourteenth lay quiet, receiving a big mail from home.

On the morning of the 21st it advanced a little toward the enemy, to straighten the general line, and was busy all day in throwing up a respectable earth-line of defences. Early had, on the 19th, extended his left to Bunker Hill; and on the 21st he threw forward his left to Summit Point, his right resting on Winchester. His line of battle ran north and south, facing east. The Union line faced west, commanding the fords of the Opequan; the line running from the Smithfield pike through Clifton, and crossing the Berryville pike.

On the 21st Early attempted to get into the rear of Sheridan's right by moving a force rapidly through Smithfield, but he failed. All day there was heavy skirmishing, Early pressing Sheridan's right considerably. Early says that he "made a general movement toward Harper's Ferry," and he only waited for re-enforcements from his centre to make a general attack.

When he got his re-enforcements, there was nothing to attack; for at eleven P.M. the Union army suddenly fell back, and, marching nearly all night, took position on the ridges at Halltown. Early makes the ridiculous statement that "Sheridan had taken a strong position under the protection of the heavy guns on Maryland Heights." The Union troops never dreamed of such distant protection. Sheridan did have a line extending across the Valley from the Potomac to the Shenandoah, and Early dared not press upon it.

For the next few days there were several reconnoissances by both sides, and frequent skirmishing between the armies, which really amounted to battles.

On the 25th occurred an engagement which was a mutual surprise. And in this event the wonderful mastery of the science of war by Sheridan is apparent. A less able commander would have been outwitted. Sheridan was constantly feeling of the enemy, and on the 25th sent out a heavy cavalry reconnoissance. This body met a strong force of Rebel infantry and cavalry marching toward Williamsport. Early had weakened his main line, to send off this raiding party. Sheridan afterward believed that the Rebel leader was up to his old trick of crossing into Maryland and creating another panic. Early explains it by saying, "I intended to move to Williamsport, as if to cross into Maryland, in order to keep up the fear of an invasion of Pennsylvania." At any rate, when the Yankee cavalry met his secretly planned expedition in a smart battle, he thought the whole manoeuvre had been discovered, and that Sheridan would pounce upon his weakened line; so he raced his infantry back into line again. His movement so isolated Custer's brigade of cavalry from the remainder of the Union reconnoissance, that he had to go away round through Williamsport and Harper's Ferry before he could join the army again.

On the 26th there was heavy skirmishing well up to our lines; and the Fourteenth boys will remember the fine spectacle which they beheld beneath them, in the fields where the long and persistent lines of smoke-puffs showed the range of the contest. We now come to the entering wedge which finally split the

EARLY RETREATING.

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Rebel phalanx in the Valley, and utterly disintegrated treason between the Blue Ridge and the North Mountains. Early was getting an idea into his head entirely new to him. He was finding his match—and more. He was getting anxious, and that anxiety was a speedy leaven.

During the night of the 26th he showed his heels to the "Yanks," and retreated to his line covering Winchester, his left at Bunker Hill, with a cavalry force at Stephenson's Depot, away in front of his left.

On the 28th the whole Union army advanced to Charlestown; while the cavalry attacked the advanced post above mentioned, and drove it back.

On the 29th Averill, with his cavalry, moved from Williamsport to Martinsburg; but, as this was a smart menace of the enemy's left, they drove him back again across the Potomac.

The next day there was a hard battle on our right, at Smithfield Bridge, where the Rebel cavalry drove the Union troops smartly until Sheridan re-enforced them, when the Johnnies took a much stiffer dose of their own physic.

The camp or bivouac these terms are not used with distinctive accuracy· of the Fourteenth at Charlestown was delightfully located in an undulating field covered by a fine piece of timber. An immense spring of excellent water near by rendered the spot an admirable one for its use. Here another phase of the beautiful "Garden of the South" was seen and enjoyed. The men were well recovered from the fearful strain of the first marching in this lively campaign. When the army first advanced up the Valley, it suffered beyond description. Day after day scores of men in the Fourteenth were roused for the day's march when it was agony for them to stand upon their feet. Blisters puffed out from the bottoms of their feet, covering half the treading surface. Every step for the first hour was torture; and then, getting "limbered up" and inured to the pain, they cheerfully jogged on, to repeat the experience on the next morning. The writer has some reason to know that this is no exaggeration. The prudent sufferers washed their feet every night, never in the morning, and, before starting each day,

soaped the inside of their socks thoroughly. Then, if they were tolerably well shod, sore feet could be cured while marching every day.

From the 1st to the 3d of September there was a lull in manoeuvring and fighting.

On the 3d Averill made a determined push eastward from Martinsburg, defeating the Rebel cavalry, and capturing valuable property. In concert with this, the infantry moved on and occupied the position stretching from Clifton to Berryville; the Sixth Corps going by Summit Point, the Nineteenth by the Berryville pike. Crook was on the left, beyond Berryville.

It was at twilight on the evening of the 3d that the Fourteenth filed to the right from the pike, having marched from Charlestown, and, after proceeding for half a mile through wooded and open country, camped on the ridge, where it remained for more than a fortnight. The boys will remember the hour's halt on the pike before the column turned aside for camping, and will, perhaps, much more readily recall the hour's firing just in front while the line was moving from the pike to the camp. It was thought that the Fourteenth was getting into a very warm place. This is the explanation of that engagement, which was liveliest just after dark. Torbert, with his cavalry, had been ordered to White Post-away beyond our left and toward the enemy-early in the day; and it was one of Early's bright ideas to cut him off. Coming across the Opequan, Kershaw's division aimed for him, but had not calculated on being opposed by infantry. But Sheridan was not up there for child's play, and it so happened that Crook was right there; and Kershaw found it out just about dark; and a good deal after dark the situation was so illuminated by Crook's charges that Kershaw was able to take those of his men who were not killed, at a lively gait back to the Opequan. In that blood the camp near Berryville was christened. A good view of this camp is given. Both armies remained in about the same position until the famous 19th.

At this time there was very little difference in the strength of the opposing forces.