“halt,” and then a parley, so I ordered the men to turn towards the river.  The command came after us to “halt, halt,” but we only redoubled our speed, while “bang, bang,” roared their guns, the bullets raining thick and fast over our head.  I never saw or heard of my new found friends again, and expect they, like many captured that day, next enjoyed freedom after Lee and Johnston had surrendered.  When we reached the river it was undecided whether we could cross or not.  So one of my men, a good swimmer, laid off his accoutrement and undertook to test the depth.  In he plunged, and was soon out of sight in the blue waters.  As he arose he called out, “Great God! don’t come in here if you don’t want to be drowned.  This river has got no bottom.”  Our only alternative was to go still higher and cross above the intersection of the north and south prongs of the Shenandoah, where it was fordable.  This we did, and our ranks augmented considerable as we proceeded up the banks of the stream, especially when we had placed the last barrier between us and the enemy.  We had representatives of every regiment in Early’s Army, I think, in our crowd, for we had no regiment, as it naturally follows that a man lost at night, with a relentless foe at his heels, will seek company.

We returned each man to his old quarters, and as the night wore on more continued to come in singly, by twos, and by the half dozens, until by midnight the greater portion of the army, who had not been captured or lost in battle, had found rest at their old quarters.  But such a confusion!  The officers were lost from their companies—­the Colonels from their regiments, while the Generals wandered about without staff and without commands.  The officers were as much dazed and lost in confusion as the privates in the ranks.  For days the men recounted their experiences, their dangers, their hair-breadth escapes, the exciting chase during that memorable rout in the morning and the stampede in the evening, and all had to laugh.  Some few took to the mountains and roamed for days before finding an opportunity to return; others lay in thickets or along the river banks, waiting until all was still and quiet, then seek some crossing.  Hundreds crowded near the stone bridge (the Federal pickets were posted some yards distance), and took advantage of the darkness to cross over under the very nose of the enemy.  One man of the Fifteenth came face to face with one of the videttes, when a hand to hand encounter took place—­a fight in the dark to the very death—­but others coming to the relief of their comrade beat the Confederate to insensibility and left him for dead.  Yet he crawled to cover and lay concealed for a day and night, then rejoined his regiment in a sickening plight.

A man in my company, Frank Boozer, was struck by a glancing bullet on the scalp and fell, as was thought, dead.  There he lay, while hundreds and hundreds trampled over him, and it was near day when he gained consciousness and made his way for the mountain to the right.  There he wandered along its sides, through its glens and gorges, now dodging a farm house or concealing himself in some little cave, until the enemy passed, for it was known that the mountains and hills on either side were scoured for the fugitives.