Giles Court-house, or Parisburg [Pearisburg], Camp Number
6. — Just reached here from Princeton after a fatiguing march of
twenty-eight miles. Found the major very glad to see us. All anxious, hearing
reports of [the] Forty-fifth reinforced by [the] Thirty-sixth or [the]
Twenty-second with artillery, etc., etc. Now all safe if we are vigilant. The
country after the road strikes New River is romantic, highly cultivated, and
beautiful. Giles Court-house is [a] neat, pretty village with a most
magnificent surrounding country both as regards scenery and cultivation. The
people have all been Secesh, but are polite and intelligent. When Major Comly,
Captain Gilmore, and Captain Drake entered town, the people were standing on
the corners, idly gossiping — more numerous than the invaders. They did not at
first seem to know who it was; then such a scampering, such a rushing into the
streets of women, such weeping, scolding, begging, etc., etc.
Spent the night posting pickets and arranging against an
attack so as to prevent a surprise. At midnight a citizen came in saying the
enemy were preparing to attack us — the Forty-fifth and Twenty-second — when he
was at their camp, twelve miles from here at Cloyd's Mountain. I doubled the
pickets, dressed myself and kept about quietly all the rest of the night.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 254-5
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