attracted attention, and whose name had become famous when he fell in June, 1862, as Brigadier-General of cavalry, but gallantly leading an infantry charge.
I saw here also Colonel J. E. B. Stuart, who afterwards became the idol of the army, Colonel E. Kirby Smith, who was to surrender, as General commanding, the trans-Mississippi Department, Major Whiting, who was to win his wreath and stars and imperishable glory for his brave defense of Wilmington, and a number of others who are not unknown to fame.
General Johnston at once won the confidence and enthusiastic admiration of all the troops; but it required all of their love for him to bear with any patience his decision, that so far from being a "stronghold," Harper's Ferry was "a complete man-trap," and should be evacuated as soon as the machinery, &c., could be removed.
On the 13th of June, Colonel A. P. Hill, with his own regiment and the Tenth Virginia, moved back to Winchester, and preparations for the evacuation of Harper's Ferry were begun at once.
To one of Lee's veterans it is very amusing to recall those days of "holiday" soldiering at Harper's Ferry, where we were all quartered in houses, where we drilled in dress uniforms and white gloves, where every private soldier had his trunk, and each company enough baggage for a small wagon train.
But now we were to become sure enough soldiers. On the 14th, Colonel Hill was started (with his own regiment, the Tenth Virginia, and the Third Tennessee) to make a march to Romney, forty-three miles west of Winchester, for the purpose of meeting a reported advance in that direction of his old West Point chum, McClellan. I well remember the scene on the streets of Winchester, as we marched through, amid the waving of handkerchiefs by the ladies and the shouts of the crowd; the hospitality of the good people along the route, who supplied us with buttermilk and "wheat bread ;" the sufferings of the men, all unused to marching, who soon filled the ambulances and the wagons; the warm reception we met at Romney by people who hailed us as their "deliverers," and treated us with the utmost kindness; and the pleasure I found in relieving blistered feet by resorting to my boyhood habit of going barefooted.
While at Romney, the Commissary, a young gentleman who had been detailed for the purpose, reported one day that he could find no beef for that day's rations. "Very well," said Colonel Hill, "you can report back to your company. We have no earthly use for a Commissary who, in a country like this, cannot furnish regular rations for the
