without cannonry and every color trailing in the dust.  And what caused it?  The sudden change from victory to defeat.  It was not the want of Generalship, for General Early had wisely planned.  It was not for lack of courage of the troops, for that morning they had displayed valor and over come obstacles which would have baffled and dismayed less bold spirits.  Was it for the superior gallantry of the enemy’s troops or the superior Generalship of their adversary?  The latter was awry, and the former had been routed from their entrenchments by the bayonet of the Confederates.  Sheridan did not even hope to stop our victorious march, only to check it sufficiently to enable him to save the remnant of his army.  A feeble advance, a panic strikes our army, and all is lost, while no individual, officer, brigade, or regiment could be held responsible.  It shows that once a panic strikes an army all discipline is lost and nothing but time will restore it.  For nearly one hundred years historians have been framing reasons and causes of Napoleon’s Waterloo, but they are as far from the real cause to-day as they were the night of the rout.  It will ever remain the same sad mystery of Early at Cedar Creek.  Men are, in some respects, like the animal, and especially in large bodies.  A man, when left alone to reason and think for himself, and be forced to depend upon his own resources, will often act differently than when one of a great number.  The “loss of a head” is contageous.  One will commit a foolish act, and others will follow, but cannot tell why.  Otherwise quiet and unobtrusive men, when influenced by the frenzy of an excited mob, will commit violence which in their better moments their hearts would revolt and their consciences rebel against.  A soldier in battle will leave his ranks and fly to the rear with no other reason than that he saw others doing the same, and followed.

The stampede of Early was uncalled for, unnecessary, and disgraceful, and I willingly assume my share of the blame and shame.  My only title to fame rests upon my leading the Third South Carolina Regiment in the grandest stampede of the Southern Army, the greatest since Waterloo, and I hope to be forgiven for saying with pardonable pride that I led them remarkably well to the rear for a boy of eighteen.  A General could not have done better.

We passed the little towns and villages of the Valley, the ladies coming to their doors and looking on the retreat in silence.  Were we ashamed?  Don’t ask the pointed question, gentle reader, for the soldiers felt as if they could turn and brain every Federal soldier in the army with the butt of his rifle.  But not a reproach, not a murmur from those self-sacrificing, patriotic women of the Valley.  They were silent, but sad—­their experience during the time the enemy occupied the Valley before told them they had nothing to expect but insult and injury, for their bold, proud Virginia blood would not suffer them to bend the knee in silent submission.  Their sons and husbands had all given themselves to the service of their country, while rapine and the torch had already done its work too thoroughly to fear it much now or dread its consequences.  But the presence alone of a foreign foe on their threshold was the bitterness of gall.