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discovered an officer of a New York regiment mortally wounded and dying.
This Christian gentleman knelt and prayed with his wounded enemy — not
enemy now — whilst the men of the battery stood reverently by until the poor
soldier closed his eyes in death.
We next find the Chesapeakes at Harper's Ferry, and there one morning, just
as the sun was rising, their Parrotts screamed forth an unexpected surprise to
General Miles and the army there in fancied security. Fiercely those guns were
worked that day, and one of the last shells fired by the battery cost General
Miles his life.
After the surrender of those ten thousand men, the Confederates, under
Jackson, were hurried to Sharpsburg, where there was pressing need for their
services. A. P. Hill, with his light division, was left at Harper's Ferry to complete
the surrender, when he, too, was to follow with all possible dispatch. The reader
knows how well Jackson fought that day, and how, happily, in the nick of time,
Hill swung his light division into line and saved the army from destruction.
And where were the Chesapeakes ? Where were they not on that gory field ?
First here, then there, those self-same Parrotts, captured at Cedar Run, dealt
death and destruction to the enemy, and perhaps never before were those guns so
savagely handled. The occasion required that they should be on that dreadful
day of the 17th of September.
Shattered and torn by the pounding it had received at the hands of the
overwhelming forces of the enemy, the army under General Lee returned to
Virginia, after having made the best contested battle it ever did make prior to
or subsequently, and the Confederate soldier who fought at Sharpsburg can be
proud of the heritage he leaves behind.
After returning to Virginia from the short campaign into Maryland, the
Chesapeake moved slowly along the Valley turnpike until Bunker Hill was
reached, where it remained for awhile, and crossed the Blue Ridge in November
on its way to the Rappahannock in the vicinity of Fredericksburg.
In the fierce engagement at that place on the 13th of December. 1862, the
Chesapeake took a prominent part near Hamilton's Crossing, and suffered severe
loss. In this battle the lamented Grason fell, as did others equally as brave.
A short time after the battle the battery went into winter quarters in De
Jarnette's Woods, in Caroline County, near Bowling Green, where the men had
many weeks of much-needed rest.
But spring came at last, and with it came plenty of hard work for the Army
of Northern Virginia.
The Federal Army, now under Hooker, occupied a strong position at Chan-
cellorsville. General Lee confronted him with a much inferior army, but he still
had Jackson with him, but, alas ! it was decreed that it should be for the last
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