General Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War

[23] Winchester. As this information had come from the most respectable sources, it was believed, and Colonel A. P. Hill immediately dispatched to Winchester with his own (Thirteenth) and Colonel Gibbons's (Tenth Virginia) regiments on trains provided by Mr. Mason's forethought. Colonel Hill was instructed to add Colonel Vaughn's (Third Tennessee) regiment, which had just reached the town, to his detachment, and to move on toward Romney without delay, and to take the best measures in his power to retard the progress of the Federal troops, if they should be approaching “the Valley.”

During that day and the next the heavy baggage of the troops (almost every private soldier had a trunk), the property of the quartermaster's and subsistence departments, and the remaining machinery of the armory, were removed to Winchester by railroad, whence the machinery was transported over the turnpike to Strasburg, on the Manassas Gap Railroad, and the bridges over the Potomac were destroyed from the Point of Rocks to Shepardstown.

The troops followed on the morning of the 15th, by the Berryville road, and bivouacked for the night three or four miles beyond Charlestown.

Before the time for resuming the march next morning, intelligence was received from the cavalry outposts that General Patterson's army had crossed the Potomac below Williamsport, and was marching toward Martinsburg. I determined at once to oppose its advance on that road; and directed the march of the Confederate troops across the country to Bunker's Hill, midway between Martinsburg and Win.