Winchester March 13^th

 

Dear Brother.

                        When I wrote to you a few days ago I did not expect to write to you so soon from Winchester. I expected that we would have something of a fight before taking possesion of the town, but here we are without a man killed and but one wounded slightly On Tuesday morning we received orders to be ready for the road at a moments notice so we got ready, and at half past twelve were on our way to get a look at Winchester the place there was so much talk about our force consisted of 10 pieces of Artillery, about 300 Cavalry & 10 Regiments of Infantry. our Reg^t had the honor of taking the lead. After we had marched about a mile Companies A. K. C. & D were sent on ahead to skirmish or as some of the boys called it to scrimmage. Co C & K were on the right of the road and D & A on the left. We had gone on for about two Miles without seeing any signs of secesh until we thought we had gone too far in advance of the main Column so we stopped until our Cavalry came up. we then advanced a little further when we seen a large fire in a woods about 400 yards ahead and found that it was the Camp of the Rebel Cavalry pickets. they had seen us and were taking their camp equipage off. there was about two hundred of them. they were the famous Asby’s Cavalry commanded by Ashby himself. their main body were drawn up in line in a large orchard too far out of the reach of our muskets about thirty or forty of them were sent up the road towards us / to reconnoitre so our Major who was with us ordered our Company into a field towards a large stone fence about 50 yards from the road we went over on a double quick and got with in 150 yds of them when we fired into them with what success we dont know. they retreated for a short distance and then returned but we gave them another volley. when they cleared off about half a mile our Artillery then came up and fired a couple of shots after them but they took good care to keep out of the reach of our guns. we followed them for about a mile they fired some shots after us while they were retreating but they all fell short with the exception of one which struck Edward Haber a little above the Knee but it didnt amount to much as the ball was almost spent when it reached him. He was the only man that was hurt. The rebels got into woods where they had a small brass piece stationed. Gen Williams who was in Command thought it best not to advance any farther that day as we did not know what force lay back of the woods, so we halted for the night and this ended the first days work.

 

on Wednesday we got up bright & early prepared to fight our way to Winchester which was only four miles distant and we had heard that the Rebels had fortified the place 3 miles out of the town we expected a pretty hard fight but as we had been strongly reinforced during the night we were not afraid of the result

 

The 5 Conn & 3^th Mass took the lead this time closely followed by the Cavalry & Artillery. We were almost the last Reg^t as the Regiment that goes first

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