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them at the risk of bringing on a battle.
He ordered the posting of guns so as to command the road for half a mile or more, all to be accurately trained on the track by the light of day, and ready to be discharged at any moment.
Infantry companies were stationed to fire into the trains, if the artillery failed to stop them.
Pickets were posted out two or three miles, with orders to fire signal-guns as soon as the first troop-laden train should pass.
About 1 o'clock at night we heard the rumbling of an approaching train.
The long roll was beat; the men assembled at their assigned positions and in silence awaited the sound of the signal-guns.
A nervous cavalryman was the vedette.
As the train passed him (it was the regular mail) he thought he saw soldiers in it, and fired.
Pop!
pop! pop!
came down the road from successive sentries.
Primers were inserted and
lanyards held taut, to be pulled when the engine should turn a certain point four hundred yards distant from the battery.
By great good luck
Colonel William S. H. Baylor, commanding the 5th Virginia regiment, was with some of his men stationed a little beyond the point, and, seeing no troops aboard the train, signaled it to stop.
It did so, not one hundred yards beyond where the artillery would have opened on it. When the first excitement was over, he demanded of the conductor what troops, if any, were on board, and was told there was “one old fellow in uniform asleep on the mail-bags in the first car.”
Entering that car with a file of soldiers, he secured the third prisoner of war taken in
Virginia.
It proved to be
Brigadier-General W. S. Harney, of the United States army, on his way from the
West to
Washington, to resign his commission and go to
Europe rather than engage in a fratricidal war. He surrendered with a pleasant remark, and was taken to
General Harper's headquarters, where he spent the night.
On his assurance that he knew of no troops coming from the
West,
Harper ordered us all to quarters.
Next morning
General Harney was paroled to report in
Richmond, and was escorted to a train about to leave for
Winchester.
He was a fine-looking old soldier, and as he walked down the street to the depot he saw all our forces except the cavalry.
He was accompanied socially by two or three of our generals and a swarm of staff-officers.
He cast his glance over the few hundred men in sight, and turning to
General Harper, I heard him inquire, with a merry twinkle in his eye, Where is your army
