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Major Brown had that morning sent Company B, Captain G. M. Emack, and
Company C, Lieutenant T. J. Smith, to relieve the companies on picket. These
companies fell in with the enemy's advance on the turnpike, killed one, captured
seven men and six horses. A courier was immediately sent back to notify General
Jones of the advance of the enemy in force.
General Jones at once placed himself at the head of the Eleventh Virginia
Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel O. R. Funsten, and started to meet
the enemy. Owing to the fact that many men of the Eleventh were absent on
various duties, Lieutenant-Colonel Funston had but one hundred and twenty men
under his command when he suddenly came upon the enemy five hundred strong
at Maurertown. Nevertheless the brave old man charged into their midst, routed
and pursued them with sabre and revolver with good effect until Cedar Creek was
reached, a distance of twelve miles. By this time Funston had more prisoners
than he had men, and Colonel R. H. Dulany, with the Seventh Virginia, coming
up, Lieutenant-Colonel Funsten turned the pursuit over to him, and it was
continued beyond Middletown, when Colonel Dulany was compelled to halt his
regiment owing to the exhaustion of his horses, after a race of twenty-six miles.
In the meantime Major Ridgely Brown, hearing that Captain Bond was being
pursued on the back road, went to his assistance with thirty men of the Maryland
battalion, all he had in camp, and sent for Emack and Smith, who were on the
turnpike, to join him. Major Brown followed the enemy rapidly on the back
road, but upon reaching the turnpike, finding Funsten and Dulany ahead of him,
he desisted from the pursuit, having captured in the meantirrje fourteen men,
with their horses and equipments.
The indirect result of this daring raid upon the enemy's pickets by the two
Maryland companies was the capture of over two hundred men and horses, and
the killing and wounding of many more.
A little incident that is worth narrating transpired during the flight of the
Federal cavalry. Charley Hutton, of Company A, First Maryland, was captured
in the morning when Captain Bond was surprised, and, unarmed, was riding with
his captors when Lieutenant-Colonel Funsten made his attack. In the rout which
ensued Hutton determined to make his escape. Awaiting a favorable opportunity,
he sprang from his horse and dashed into a thicket and ran for his life ; but at
every step he could plainly hear the sound of horse's hoofs behind him. But not a
sound escaped the pursuing enemy. Faster and faster ran Hutton, but the
relentless enemy still pursued. He was afraid to look behind him, and was in
momentary expectation of hearing the crack of a pistol and feeling the shock
of a bullet as it entered nis body. But no command to " Halt !'' was given, nor
was there a sound of pistol shot. At last, exhausted and unable to go farther, he
turned to surrender to his pursuer, when what was his surprise and joy to find
that it was his own faithful horse that had followed him and given him such a scare.
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