On Saturday evening I was with the advance guard under Lieutenant Sibert, moving along quiet, when we saw two young men, well dressed, run from a fine looking house across a field. Sibert told two of his men to ride after and capture them and they did so. The young men told the officer they were sorry they had run, that they were not soldiers, were only there to see their best girls to spend the evening with them. The Lieutenant told the men that he was going a mile or so farther and would return in a short time as the army was going into camp shortly and he would leave them there at the house with the young ladies until he returned. In this time the two young ladies came to the gate and Sibert told them he would leave the prisoners with them till we returned to camp. When we returned the two young ladies fetched the two young men to the road. The Lieutenant told the ladies they were trusty ladies, as they had done so well he would leave the young men with them. They all thanked the officer and took a good laugh before we parted.

We came up with General Lee's army at Gettysburg. We guarded Lee's left wing, could see the fighting on Round Top on the 3rd of July, 1863. We laid quiet on the 4th of July till evening, then General Lee ordered our brigade to fetch out his wagon train and General J. D. Imboden got the train ready to move before dark. It was the longest wagon train I ever saw, some said it was 37 or 38 mile long and hauled thousands of dead and wounded soldiers. 'Twas an awful night, it rained all night, one thunderstorm after another. The rain fell in sheets and vivid flashes of lightning and so dark we could not see our hands an inch from our eyes when there was no lightning. The roar of the waters and heavy bursting thunder, the cries of the wounded and dying soldiers made it awful.

We traveled all night and at daylight we passed through a city called Greencastle and a few miles south of this town the enemy attacked the train. The guard at this part of the train was not strong enough and we were ordered back. The wagoners had jammed the road full of wagons, so we had to take to the fields by the sides of the road. We went on the run and got there to find the enemy having their way, but some of our boys were coming from the other end of the train and we soon got the enemy on the run, then the wagoners got their teams together again and moved on to Williamsport, Maryland. I was left at the crossing of the roads at the National Turnpike north of Williamsport with several others, the train rolled past all night and the last wagon passed several hours after sunrise on the 6th of July.

This guard was called to move on to Williamsport and when we reached our regiment it was falling in line to count off and before we were done counting, we heard a cannon fire. This told us what was coming and we moved over a little hill to learn the enemy was coming from the east to capture the wagon train. We got in line ready to fight, about ten to one. The enemy had a large force of cannon and they had the air full of flying shells in a very short time and our little brigade the only organized army to fight them, but it happened that General Jones was either on the sick list or among the wounded and came on the field. He saw how things stood and told General J. D. Imboden to do the best he could while he (Jones) went and armed the wagoners and sent them to the field. It was not long till we saw General Jones fetching out armed wagoners two and three hundred at a time and in every part of the field. We had two or three batteries on the field before three o'clock in the evening. The enemy extended their lines far up the river and were between us and Lee's army which was coming from Gettysburg.

The enemy got the range of our line and threw their shells in our ranks, killed some horses and men. We were supporting two batteries, we were all dismounted. After charging our line a few times, then they run us on double quick from on battery to the other till Jones got out all the wagoners. It was an awful hot, sultry day and we had our side arms and sabers and all the straps, etc., a cavalry man has to carry which made it awful hard on us boys and our clothes were soaked with perspiration. All the long wagon train was jammed in along the river banks and streets of the town. The river was full and past fording. A few men in a boat were taking a wagon at a time over to the Virginia side, which would take a week to get them all over in this way.

The fight commenced about two o'clock on the evening of the 6th and continued till about an hour after dark when Fitzhugh Lee's division rolled up in the rear of the enemy's lines and all was saved. We slept on the field with our guns that night and the rain came down like cloud bursts and drenched us.

On the evening of the 7th of July we went out on a road to the northwest of Williamsport, had a fight and drove the enemy back to the mountain. They had a fort on the mountain and it was our duty to look after these Yankees on this part of the line and not let them get too close to Williamsport till our wagons and the infantry all passed over to the Virginia side of the river.

It was an awful place, the dead horses and offal of the great number of beeves etc. killed for the army packed around the little town made it very unpleasant for us when we returned to camp after night. The green flies were around us all the time and orders was not to unsaddle or unbridle our horses and be ready for duty all the time. Our blankets was under our saddles and soaked with water and the green flies were working under the rawhide covering of our saddles and ulcerated backs of our horses.

Here I lose the day of the week and day of the month. It was rush all the time, when we would go to camp for food and sleep we would very likely be ordered out on the line again by the news of outposts being attacked and drove in and then we would very likely spend the rest of the night looking for a fight. This work was kept up for quite a while and quite a number of the soldiers fell with disease and were sent to the Virginia side of the river with the wounded. We fed our horses on sheaf wheat and the beards made the horses tongues sore and ulcerated. Our regiment was about the last to cross the river, we went in camp about a mile or so south of the river with orders to unsaddle our horses. Our horses backs were raw with ulcers one and two inches deep and full of maggots. The green flies had put up a big job on us, our blankets were full of maggots and rotten, our saddles had from a pint to a quart of maggots in them and we had to run them out with hot water and soap and it was months before the horses backs were cured. The people tell us this is the 18th of July 1863. A farmer was shot and mortally wounded last night by a soldier. The old gentleman decided to guard his corncrib and a soldier went for some corn to feed his horse and the farmer fired on the soldier. The soldier returned the fire with fatal results. I learned that this farmer was a so-called Union man and was too sulky to ask for a guard to protect his property which he could have had by making application for. The soldier had been in service long enough to know it was out of order to fire without first asking the advancing party to halt.

Well, we have cleaned the maggots from our saddles, blankets and horses backs and laid and strung everything out to dry in a beautiful July sun. We all sat down or lay down on the ground to think about the last two months work. We learn we, or Lee's army, have lost twenty to thirty thousand men since we crossed the river and invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania. What an awful thing is war and what is this war for anyway.

A Civil War Collection from the VMI Archives
18th Virginia Cavalry, Company F.
(Imboden's Brigade)

Isaac Norval Baker Memoirs
VMI Archives Manuscript #0357
Part 2. July 1-18 1863, including Gettysburg and aftermath.

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