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some eight hundred or one thousand head of beef cattle.
His men had been exposed to the same severe weather to which those at Fisher's Hill had been, and the feet of a few of them had been frosted.
As soon as I heard of his safe return, I moved back up the valley, and the cattle brought off were sent to the army.
Not long afterwards, Fitz. Lee's cavalry returned to the eastern side of the ridge, but its place was taken by Rosser's brigade, which had come into the valley.
About the last of January I undertook another expedition into the Hardy Valley for the same objects for which the first had been made.
This I determined to make with Rosser's brigade of cavalry and one of the brigades of infantry, accompanied by McClanahan's battery, that being the only artillery there was in the valley.
Rosser with his brigade, McNeil's company, a part of Gilmor's battalion, the battery and some wagons passed through Brock's Gap into the valley of Lost River, while Thomas' brigade moved over the mountains, at the Orkney Springs pass, to the same valley.
Imboden was left with Walker's brigade of infantry at Mount Jackson, and his own brigade of cavalry advanced down the Valley pike towards Winchester, to demonstrate in that direction.
Passing over the mountain to Matthews' on Lost River in advance of Thomas' brigade I found Rosser at that place, where we spent the night.
From this point the road to Moorefield ascends to the summit of Branch Mountain and then along that for several miles, through a wild, mountainous and desolate looking region, until it comes to the point of descent into the Moorefield Valley, which latter, a most beautiful and fertile valley surrounded by high mountains, is reached at the western base of the mountain on the South Fork of the South Branch.
Starting early in the morning we reached the South Fork with the cavalry and artillery early in the day, and leaving the main force there, behind the mountain intervening between the two forks, McNeil's company was
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