barefooted or nearly so, and a dispatch had been sent from
Salem by courier, and Lynchburg by telegraph, to Richmond,
requesting shoes to be sent to Staunton, but they had not arrived.
Another telegram was received here from Gen. Lee, stating that the circumstances under which my original orders were given had changed, and again submitting it to my judgment, in the altered state of things, whether the movement down the Valley and across the Potomac should be made. The accession to my command from Breckenridge's forces had not been as great as General Lee supposed it would be, on account of the disorganization consequent on Jones' defeat at Piedmont, and the subsequent rapid movement to Lynchburg from Rockfish Gap, but I determined to carry out the original design at all hazards, and telegraphed to General Lee my purpose to continue the movement.
The march was resumed on the 28th with five days rations in the waggons and two days in haversacks, empty waggons being left to bring the shoes when they arrived. Imboden was sent through Brock's Gap in the Great North Mountain to the Valley of the South Branch of the Potomac, with his brigade of cavalry and a battery of horse artillery, to destroy the railroad bridge over that stream and all the bridges on the Baltimore and Ohio rail-road from that point to Martinsburg. The telegraph line was repaired to New-Market as we marched down the Valley, and communications kept up with that point by signal stations. On the 2nd of July we reached Winchester,[1]
- ↑ On this day we passed through Newtown where several houses, including that of a Methodist minister, had been burned by Hunter's orders, because apart of Mosby's command had attacked a train of supplies for Sigel's force, at this place. The original order was to burn the whole town, but the officer sent to execute it had revolted at the cruel mandate of his superior, and another had been sent who but partially executed it, after having forced the people to take an oath of allegiance to the United States to save their houses. Mosby's battalion, though called "guerillas" by the enemy, was a regular organization in the Confederate Army, and was merely serving on detached duty under General Lee's orders. The attack on the train was an act of legitimate warfare, and the order to burn Newtown, and the burning of the houses mentioned were most wanton, cruel, unjustifiable, and cowardly.
