ing Cedar Creek. We
spent that night at Martinsburg, and early next morning mounted and
started up the Valley pike for Winchester, leaving Captain Sheridan
behind to conduct to the army the Commissioners whom the State of New
York had sent down to receive the vote of her troops in the coming
Presidential election. Colonel Alexander was a man of enormous
weight, and Colonel Thom correspondingly light, and as both were
unaccustomed to riding we had to go slowly, losing so much time, in
fact, that we did not reach Winchester till between 3 and 4 o'clock
in the afternoon, though the distance is but twenty-eight miles. As
soon as we arrived at Colonel Edwards's headquarters in the town,
where I intended stopping for the night, I sent a courier to the
front to bring me a report of the condition of affairs, and then took
Colonel Alexander out on the heights about Winchester, in order that
he might overlook the country, and make up his mind as to the utility
of fortifying there. By the time we had completed our survey it was
dark, and just as we reached Colonel Edwards's house on our return a
courier came in from Cedar Creek bringing word that everything was
all right, that the enemy was quiet at Fisher's Hill, and that a
brigade of Grover's division was to make a reconnoissance in the
morning, the 19th, so about 10 o'clock I went to bed greatly
relieved, and expecting to rejoin my headquarters at my leisure next
day.

Toward 6 o'clock the morning of the 19th, the officer on picket duty
at Winchester came to my room, I being yet in bed, and reported
artillery firing from the direction of Cedar Creek. I asked him if
the firing was continuous or only desultory, to which he replied that
it was not a sustained fire, but rather irregular and fitful. I
remarked: "It's all right; Grover has gone out this morning to make a
reconnoissance, and he is merely feeling the enemy." I tried to go to
sleep again, but grew so restless that I could not, and soon got up
and dressed myself. A little later the picket officer came back and
reported that the firing, which could be distinctly heard from his
line on the heights outside of Winchester, was still going on. I
asked him if it sounded like a battle, and as he again said that it
did not, I still inferred that the cannonading was caused by Grover's
division banging away at the enemy simply to find out what he was up
to. However, I went down-stairs and requested that breakfast be
hurr