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In July, 1864, Company K, then under command of Captain Gustavus W.
Dorsey, was transferred from the First Virginia to the First Maryland, after
having made an enviable reputation during its long service in the Virginia
regiment. In many of the official reports of Generals Steuart, Jones and Fitzhugh
Lee they make special mention of the conspicuous gallantry displayed by Company
K. In one of the many encounters the regiment had with the enemy Lieutenant
Rudolphus Cecil was killed. This young officer's dash and daring is spoken of
again and again by Fitzhugh Lee in his official reports, and his untimely death
was deeply deplored.

After the organization of the battalion it was ordered to Newmarket to unite
with the Second Maryland Infantry and Baltimore Light Artillery there encamped.
These three commands constituted the Maryland Line.

The winter of 1862-63 was passed at various points in the Valley, with its
usual routine of picket duty, and naught else to vary the monotony of camp life.
On the 2d of January General William E. Jones made an expedition to Moorefield
in hopes of encountering the enemy, but it was fruitless of results, though the old
General consoled himself by procuring a portable bake-oven he brought back, the
single trophy to commemorate the privations its capture had entailed upon the
command. But as the winter disappeared, more stirring events were promised.

On the 23d of February Companies A and D, commanded respectively by
Captain Frank A. Bond and Lieutenant William H. B. Dorsey, two daring young
officers, were sent on picket near Strasburg. On the evening of the 25th, the men
being anxious for some excitement, Captain Bond determined to gratify them.
Having learned the exact location of the enemy's pickets, the two companies,
comprising sixty men all told, started about 10 o'clock at night on their perilous
expedition. At daybreak they arrived to within less than two miles of Winchester,
on the Cedar Creek road, and finding the infantry picket, charged through it,
receiving a few scattering shots. At the junction of the Cedar Creek and Staunton
roads they were met by a volley of musketry from a house, but it did not check
them, and turning up the Staunton road toward home they rode down a third
infantry picket. At Kernstown they found a cavalry picket quietly warming
themselves in a house. This they attacked and fourteen men and fifteen horses
were captured, and several of the enemy left dead and wounded in the house.
Captain Bond then returned to Strasburg with his prisoners and horses, having
lost but one man missing.

The news of the daring raid had in the meantime been conveyed to Milroy at
Winchester, and he at once dispatched the First New York and Thirteenth
Pennsylvania Cavalry in pursuit. These came upon Bond so suddenly at Strasburg
about 8 o'clock in the morning that he had only time to get off his prisoners and
make a hasty retreat up the back road, losing one man wounded and one captured.