deed, they are the equals of the highest, truest heroines of the grandest days of the greatest countries. The joy and gladness they evince when we enter their city serves to encourage and inspire us, and the sorrow and pain we see in their fair countenances, and often hear them express, with trembling lips and streaming eyes, as we leave them to endure the cruel and cowardly insults and petty persecutions of Sheridan's hirelings, fill our hearts with indescribable regret. We love to fight for patriotic Winchester and her peerless women. We camped one mile from Winchester, on the Berryville pike, and cooked our rations. Lieutenant-General Anderson, with Kershaw's infantry and Fitz. Lee's cavalry division, arrived from Lee's army. Their ranks are much depleted, but a very small reinforcement will greatly encourage and help our sadly diminished command.
August 19th—Marched to our familiar looking old camping ground at often-visited Bunker Hill.
August 20th—Twenty-four hours of rest and quiet.
August 21st—Marched through Smithfield, and halted about two miles from Charlestown, where "old John Brown's body" once "was mouldering in the ground." Our gallant division sharp-shooters, under Colonel J. C. Brown, of North Carolina, those from our brigade under Major Blackford, of Fifth Alabama, and our regiment under Lieutenant Jones, of Mobile (Company "I"), skirmished vigorously the rest of the day. The firing was fierce and continuous.
August 22d—The Yankees fell back towards Harper's Ferry, and we promptly followed, passing their breastworks and through Charlestown, encamping in a woods near where Honorable Andrew Hunter's beautiful residence recently stood. His splendid mansion had been burnt by order of General (Yankee) Hunter, his cousin. A very affectionate and cousinly act, surely!
August 23d—Quiet in camp,
August 24th—A sharp skirmish took place in front of our camp, which we could see very plainly. It was a deeply interesting sight to watch them advancing and retreating, firing from behind trees and rocks and clumps of bushes, falling down to load their discharged muskets, and rising quickly, moving forward, aiming and firing again—the whole line occasionally running rapidly forward, firing as they ran, with loud "Rebel yells," and the Yankee hirelings retreating as rapidly and firing as they fell back. It is so seldom we have an opportunity to look on, being generally inte-
