A BIG SCAMPER.
Reported by our
videttes that the enemy, ten thousand strong, were moving rapidly on the
Warwick road, and would attack us from the rear.
Magruder instantly
ordered a retreat, and the troops made very quick time for men not frightened.
There was a good
deal of hard swearing, some throwing away of baggage, and in fact a little
touch of stampede, but when we reached Yorktown the ten thousand Yankees turned
out to be only a marauding party of some fifty or more.
Hardly had we gotten
into Yorktown when my detachment was ordered to return to Bethel, with a
squadron of cavalry, to guard a wagon train sent back to recover the stores
left there.
This time we were
mounted but were pretty well broken down when we reached Bethel, as the train
moved very slowly. Upon reaching the church I had the good fortune to find a
cold boiled ham, and with the aid of ship crackers, I soon made a good square
meal. As soon as we loaded up the wagon train, we started back for Yorktown;
being much fatigued and very sleepy I could scarcely keep my seat in the
saddle. A fifteen mile march, and a thirty mile ride on horseback, in one day
is no easy matter.
SOURCE: William S.
White, A Diary of the War; or What I Saw of It, p. 101-2
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