We kept on falling back until we reached Harrisonburg, when we turned abruptly to the left and marched east to Swift Run Gap, in the Blue Ridge mountains. The enemy advanced no farther than Harrisonburg, with the exception of some scouting parties. We lay here for some time, the weather being very rough, it raining and snowing continuously.
While here the army was reorganized. As we had been mustered into service for one year, and the time expiring, most of the men had re-enlisted. They received $50 bounty and thirty days' furlough, but as only part of the army could be furloughed at once, those who did not get a furlough before we began to move never got one at all, and those who would not re-enlist were retained in service also, and received the bounty, but not the furlough.
All the companies elected company officers, and the company officers elected regimental officers, but that was the last time it was done, for after that they always went up by promotion.
Colonel A. C. Cummings, of my regiment, would not serve any longer, and our Adjutant, A. J. Neff, was elected Colonel, which very much disappointed the Lieutenant Colonel and Major. But he made a splendid officer, and did good service. We were then mustered into service for three years, or during the war.
A good many men who lived along the base of the Blue Ridge, who were liable to military duty, and some deserters, had taken refuge in the mountains and fortified themselves, and defied the conscript officers to arrest them. General Jackson sent some infantry and cavalry to capture them, when an old lady living near remarked that "The deserters had mortified in the Blue Ridge, but that General Jackson sent a foot company and a critter company to ramshag the Blue Ridge and capture them."
The day we arrived at Swift Run Gap our wagon train was in advance, and part of them had taken the wrong road and did not reach camp that night. Sergeant Parsons, of my company, was with them. The next day, when they arrived in camp, he said he stayed all night at a house way up in the mountains, and the people were so ignorant that
