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Military Institute and the private dwellings burned by his order, had the honor
to inaugurate this system of warfare in the Valley, which was afterward so fully
adopted by his Government.

All these brutal wrongs the First Maryland Cavalry witnessed, and where
powerless to prevent did not forget to avenge where opportunity offered.

Other wrongs they had to remember and avenge, such as their whole prior
experience had never known — the cold-blooded murder of their comrades.

In October, 1864, Churchill Crittenden and John Hartigan, privates of
Company C, were detailed to procure provisions for their company, which could
only be obtained from the neighboring farm-houses. The battalion was lying
then in Page County, and as the country between the two armies had not been
foraged so closely of its supplies, because of its being a middle ground, those
two young men, so detailed, sought the required rations between the two lines.
Whilst getting their supplies at a farm-house a large scouting party of the enemy
came suddenly upon them. They attempted to escape, and a running fight ensued,
which resulted in the death of two or three of the enemy and the wounding of
Crittenden severely, and the capture of both himself and Hartigan.

The prisoners were taken back two or three miles, and there, by order of
General Powell, then commanding Averill's old brigade, shot in cold blood, denying
them the poor privilege of writing lo their friends, though Hartigan. particularly,
who had a young wife, earnestly entreated with his last breath to be allowed to
send her a message.

These facts were all carefully traced out, and verified by the statement of the
citizen at whose house the two young men were first attacked, and near which
they fought and were captured; by the statement of the citizen, some two miles
to the rear, near whose house they were buried, not by the men who killed them,
but by the pitying farmer, and by the evidence rendered by the opened graves of
the poor men.

Henceforward General Powell's name was familiar to the ears and memories
of the men of the First Maryland Cavalry, and many were the vows there uttered
over the dead bodies of their comrades to avenge their death — and they were
avenged, though Powell escaped.