surprise and capture, but I succeeded in
doing nothing more than take a few prisoners and drive the enemy
from the place, with little fighting. We took Front Royal late in
the evening of a very cold night, and decided to hold it until the
next day. Not being sure of our strength, and to avoid a surprise,
I was obliged to keep my men on duty throughout the night. A feeble
attack only was made on us at daybreak.

Illustrating the way Union officers were regarded and treated by
the Secession inhabitants, I recall an incident which occurred at
Front Royal. A member of my staff arranged for supper at the house
of Colonel Bacon, an old man and Secessionist. The Colonel treated
us politely, but while we were eating a number of ladies of the
town assembled in an adjoining parlor in which there was a piano,
threw the communicating door open, and proceeded to sing such
Confederate war-songs as _Stonewall Jackson's Away_ and _My Maryland_.
We of course accepted good humoredly this concert for our benefit,
but when we had finished supper, uninvited, Chaplain McCabe--now
Bishop McCabe--and I stepped into the parlor. We were not even
offered a seat, and in a short time the music ceased and the lady
at the piano left it. Chaplain McCabe at once seated himself at
the piano, and, to the amazement of the ladies, commenced singing,
with his extraordinarily strong, sonorous voice, "We are coming,
Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." The ladies stood
their ground courageously for a time, but while the Chaplain,
playing his own accompaniment, was singing _My Maryland_, with
words descriptive of Lee's invasion and retreat from Maryland,
including the words, "And they left Antietam in their track, in
their track," the ladies threw open the front door and rushed
precipitately to the street and thence to their homes. It was
afterwards said that we were ungallant to these ladies.

While at Winchester, besides the usual camp duty and participation
in an occasional raid, I was President of a Military Commission
composed of three officers, with an officer for recorder. It was
modelled on the military commission first established, I believe,
by General Scott in Mexico for the trial of citizens for offences
not punishable under the Articles of War. There was a necessity
for some authority to take jurisdiction of common law crimes, as
all courts in the valley were suspended. Besides citizens charged
with such crimes, there were