August 18th, 1864
We marched through
Winchester, and were, as usual, warmly greeted.
Ladies and children and servants stood in the porches and on the sidewalks, with prepared food of a very tempting kind, and goblets and pitchers of cold fresh water, and sometimes of milk, which they smilingly handed to the tired troops, who, as far as I could observe, seldom declined the proffered kindness.
The native
Virginians of
Winchester and the
Valley are as true as steel, and the ladies--God bless and protect them!--are as heroic and self-denying as were the noble Spartan mothers.
Indeed,
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they are the equals of the highest, truest heroines of the grandest days of the greatest countries.
The joy and gladness they evince when we enter their city serves to encourage and inspire us, and the sorrow and pain we see in their fair countenances, and often hear them express, with trembling lips and streaming eyes, as we leave them to endure the cruel and cowardly insults and petty persecutions of
Sheridan's hirelings, fill our hearts with indescribable regret.
We love to fight for patriotic
Winchester and her peerless women.
We camped one mile from
Winchester, on the
Berryville pike, and cooked our rations.
Lieutenant-General Anderson, with
Kershaw's infantry and
Fitz. Lee's cavalry division, arrived from
Lee's army.
Their ranks are much depleted, but a very small reinforcement will greatly encourage and help our sadly diminished command.
