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On account of this diminution of force, it became necessary for me to keep thoroughly posted in regard to the enemy, and I now realized more than I had done hitherto how efficient my scouts had become since under the control of Colonel Young; for not only did they bring me almost every day intelligence from within Early's lines, but they also operated efficiently against the guerrillas infesting West Virginia.
Men on horseback talk less at night than in the day and moreover these had little to say. Their part was action, and they were waiting to see what the little Opequan would disclose to them. "Do you think they'll have a big force at the river?" asked Pennington. "No," replied Dick. "I fancy from what we've heard of Early's army that he won't have the men to spare."
At Union Mills Ford, Brigadier-General R. S. Ewell's Second Brigade, of three Infantry regiments, three Cavalry companies, and four 12-powder howitzers Colonel Jubal A. Early's Sixth Brigade, of three Infantry regiments and three rifled pieces of Walton's Battery, being posted in the rear of, and as a support to, Ewell's Brigade. Gen.
Early's story was that he came to Greencastle Oct. 4., 1895. "Soon after my arrival at Greencastle I made the acquaintance of Will Wood, a student at Depauw University. This acquaintance soon ripened into a friendship which brought us together a great deal and made us confide to each other much more than is ordinary among young men.
Thence Wright extended the line at right angles with Crook and parallel with the valley road, while Sheridan drew out Emory, who was naturally displaced by these converging movement, and sent him to extend Wright's line toward the south. The disorderly retreat of Early's men once begun, there was no staying it.
Just when the capital seemed safest Early's men had appeared in its very suburbs, and here in Virginia, where the hand of every man and of every woman and child also was against them, it was wise to watch well. As they rode on the country was still marked by desolation. The fields were swept bare or trampled down. Many of the houses and barns and all the fences had been burned.
When Sheridan heard of this, and perceived that Early's forces, already diminished, were strung along all the way from Winchester to Martinsburg, he stopped the execution of the orders he had already issued for the movement at four o'clock in the afternoon of that day, the 18th of September, and replaced them by fresh arrangements which led to the battle of the Opequon on the 19th.
At the point where Early's troops were in position, between the Massanutten range and Little North Mountain, the valley is only about three and a half miles wide.
It is probable that in this undertaking, as in some of the other movements that have been referred to on the part of the Southern leaders, the purpose was as much political as military. Early's force of from fifteen to sixteen thousand men was, of course, in no way strong enough to be an army of invasion.
We started very early in the morning in pursuit of Early's defeated army, which it was supposed would halt at the strong position at Strasburgh. On the battle-field which we left, the lifeless bodies of many of our men were awaiting the office of the burial parties.
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