Friday, October 7, 2016

Diary of Lieutenant-Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes: Saturday, May 3, 1862

Camp 5, Princeton. — The Forty-fifth Regiment had marched twenty miles through the rain to reach here, were very tired and straggled badly. They were regularly stampeded, panic-stricken, and routed. They report three killed in one party of stragglers. They had a cannon drawn by six horses, but our men “yelled so” and “fired so fast” that it was no place for cannon; so they wheeled it about and fled with it All queer! Company C killed eleven, Colonel Jenifer burned Rocky Gap (four houses) and continued his flight towards Wytheville. The Rebels report us two thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry!! Got our tents today; got into a good camp overlooking the town.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 247-8

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