Forty years of active service - 1904 Author:Charles Triplett O'Ferrall Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III FIRST HAPPENINGS IN THE VALLEY. In Shenandoah Valley on Scout and Picket Duty—Battle of Kernstown —An Incident of Picket Duty—A Single-Handed C... more »apture—I Become a Lieutenant and then a Captain—Some Captures and a "Retrograde" Movement—General Turner Ashby—We Note an Improvement in the Federal Cavalry—Wyndham Strikes a Snag. I remained a second sergeant until the spring of 1862. During all this time I was in the Shenandoah Valley engaged in picket and scout duty, and participated in numerous fights and skirmishes, receiving one wound which disabled me for several weeks. In March, 1862, the Battle of Kernstown, between Jackson and Shields, was fought, resulting in Jackson successfully meeting the vastly superior Federal force under Shields, and then quietly and in perfect order falling back up the Valley. The night before this battle my company was put on picket on the Valley Turnpike. Our videttes were stationed at the southern end of Kernstown, and I was placed in command of them. The fires of the Federal videttes could be seen at the northern end of the village. About ten o'clock Captain George Sheets, of a Hampshire cavalry company, rode down to my post, and asked me if I was well mounted. I replied that I was. He suggested that he and I make a dash at the Federal outpost and see if we could not capture it. I remarked that there were probably too many of them for two of us to tackle, but he said that as the night was dark and the wind blowing toward us, by riding on the unmacadamized part of the road we could get close to the post and surprise it, and he thought we could risk it. I replied, "all right," and we started. Slowly, cautiously, and as noiselessly as possible we rode, until we were within less than one hundred and fifty yards of the pickets, wh...« less