a time no one responded to our knocks and helloes. At last a plump, red
cheeked modest girl, of perhaps sixteen, appeared. We enquired for
apples and told her if she would fill our haversacks, we would be glad
to pay for them. She took them and soon returned with them filled with
eatable apples. We paid her the price charged and started back. We
admitted to one another that it was not a prudent act and would go hard
with us if we should be picked up. On our way back Garland glanced to
the left, and said, "There's reb cavalry!" I looked, and there, perhaps
an eighth of a mile away, was a squad of horsemen, coming on a canter
toward us. We were near a substantial rail fence on the right, and for
it we sprang with all our powers. We went over it like circus
performers, and put in our best strides for our line. I think it was
Garland that first discovered that the "men on horseback" were negro
farm hands. They had seen our lively retreat and accurately interpreted
the cause, and they were with their mouths open as wide as their jaws
would admit, haw-hawing near the point of splitting. On this discovery
we slowed down, and sauntered toward our picket line as unconcerned as
possible, but the pickets had seen the performance, and at first had
been misled as we were. As we came in we proposed to go straight to the
reserve where the detail from our regiment was. The officer in charge
refused this and sent us under a guard of two men and a corporal to
headquarters. We steered the corporal to the shelter tent of Capt. Bull
and explained the situation to him. He took it in, and, with a large
assumption of military dignity, informed the guard that he would relieve
them of any further duty in the matter, and they could go back to the
front. Garland and I were glad to divide our apples with Bull and the
others who knew of our adventure. It was one of the worst scares I had
in the service, and cured me of any attempt at foraging outside the
lines.

Gen. Walker says, "The only episode which interrupted the pleasant
monotone of rest and equipment, after the fatigues of the Manassas and
Antietam campaigns, was a reconnaissance conducted by Gen. Hancock with
the first division Oct. 16th down the valley to Charlestown, with the
view to discovering whether the enemy were there in force." We met a
battery supported by cavalry, which fell back as we advanced. The
captain of this battery was B. H. Smith, Jr. and was wounded. We found
him in a