/,' t Jf ' " 1861. 43
.1 hand to-hand tight at close quarters. Gradually the enemy gave back; then faster and la->tT. finally flying in total rout along and down the mountain side. All things considered, this was one of the most remarkable victories gained during the war. General Loring having assumed command, on hearing that Fremont was ascending the Ka^t Branch of the Potomac with 10,000 men to cut him off at McDowell, slowly fell back to the Cow Pasture mountain, to protect Staunton. About midnight of the 6th of May, Stonewall Jackson, marching rapidly from the Shenandoah Valley with a part of his small force, joined us and at once ordered us "to go back to Mc- Dowell" and fight, but whip the enemy. We reached the vicinity of McDowell, where Freemont had united with Millroy, about 2 P. M. of the 8th of May. We at once formed line of battle on the ridge above, the centre being held by the 44th and 2ist Virginia and the 1 2th Georgia regiments. Upon this attack, after attack was made to break it. The fight stubbornly continued until night, when the enemy were totally routed by a general charge and their camp, stores, etc., taken. From this date this command became part of Stonewall Jackson's famous foot cavalry present in every fight up to his lamented death. They formed part of the force of General Edward Johnson, cut off at the Bloody Angle, and furnished the principal part of the six hundred officers the martyrs of Morris's Island and Fort Pulaski many of them food for the sharks of Charleston harbor or their bodies decaying amid the boggy marshes round Fort Pulaski. At the former places held by negro troops, late slaves their ration was two ounces of bread, washed down with a pint of Cayenne pep- per tea.
Captain James M. Hughes, Company K, 44th Virginia, who resides near Scottsville, Va., says he owes his life to a negro Corporal Triner who, taking a fancy to him, daily brought him battercakes, hid beneath his shirt bosom. His brother, Lieutenant John Hughes, less fortunate, and many others, were reduced to skeletons, under the agony of starvation from a stimulated appetite goaded by the beverage given. The few who at last, in the very jaws of death, re- turned home were walking skeletons, whom even their friends failed to recognize. If any one desires to hear the terrible torments suffered by these victims of a diabolical cruelty without parallel, even in the world's darkest pages, let them call upon Captain James M. Hughes, as brave and true a soldier as marched to the tune of Dixie beneath the Stars and Bars, and as the unbidden ear of memory rises in his
