yet
notwithstanding this expression of confidence in me, the parson at
once resumed his breathless pace to the rear. At Newtown I was
obliged to make a circuit to the left, to get round the village. I
could not pass through it, the streets were so crowded, but meeting
on this detour Major McKinley, of Crook's staff, he spread the news
of my return through the motley throng there.

When nearing the Valley pike, just south of Newtown I saw about
three-fourths of a mile west of the pike a body of troops, which
proved to be Ricketts's and Wheaton's divisions of the Sixth Corps,
and then learned that the Nineteenth Corps had halted a little to the
right and rear of these; but I did not stop, desiring to get to the
extreme front. Continuing on parallel with the pike, about midway
between Newtown and Middletown I crossed to the west of it, and a
little later came up in rear of Getty's division of the Sixth Corps.
When I arrived, this division and the cavalry were the only troops in
the presence of and resisting the enemy; they were apparently acting
as a rear-guard at a point about three miles north of the line we
held at Cedar Creek when the battle began. General Torbert was the
first officer to meet me, saying as he rode up, "My God! I am glad
you've come." Getty's division, when I found it, was about a mile
north of Middletown, posted on the reverse slope of some slightly
rising ground, holding a barricade made with fence-rails, and
skirmishing slightly with the enemy's pickets. Jumping my horse over
the line of rails, I rode to the crest of the elevation, and there
taking off my hat, the men rose up from behind their barricade with
cheers of recognition. An officer of the Vermont brigade, Colonel A.
S. Tracy, rode out to the front, and joining me, informed me that
General Louis A. Grant was in command there, the regular division
commander, General Getty, having taken charge of the Sixth Corps in
place of Ricketts, wounded early in the action, while temporarily
commanding the corps. I then turned back to the rear of Getty's
division, and as I came behind it, a line of regimental flags rose up
out of the ground, as it seemed, to welcome me. They were mostly the
colors of Crook's troops, who had been stampeded and scattered in the
surprise of the morning. The color-bearers, having withstood the
panic, had formed behind the troops of Getty. The line with the
colors was largely composed of officers, among whom I re