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sent into the town, Major Goldsborough became convinced that the forts were
being evacuated, and so reported to General Ewell.

At daybreak of the 15th Major Goldsborough put his skirmishers in motion
and proceeded cautiously through the streets of Winchester without encoun-
tering the enemy. At the Taylor Hotel Captain William I. Raisin, of the First
Maryland Cavalry, was found. He had been severely wounded and captured
three or four days before in an ambuscade near Newtown. At this moment the
roar of artillery was heard some three miles out on the Martinsburg road. It
proved to proceed from an encounter of General Edward Johnson's Division
with the retreating enemy. This division had been thrown around from the
right during the night for the purpose of intercepting Milroy's retreat. The
battle was fierce and bloody, but the enemy lost heavily in killed, wounded and
prisoners. The Second Maryland skirmishers, with the exception of that portion
of Company A under command of Lieutenant George Thomas, immediately
took possession of the Star Fort, capturing some two hundred prisoners.
Lieutenant Thomas, proceeding alone, pretending not to have heard the command
to halt, ran into a large body of the enemy's cavalry, dismounted them and
mounted his own command, and marched his prisoners in triumph into town.
It was so comical a sight that Major Goldsborough administered but a mild
reprimand to the gallant young officer for his disobedience of orders.

The Star Fort for the day was made a receptacle for prisoners and garri-
soned by Company G. under command of Captain Thomas R. Stewart, whilst
the remainder of the Second Maryland were detailed for provost duty. In the
evening the battalion was relieved by the Thirteenth Virginia, under Colonel
Terrill, and was temporarily attached to Stenart's Brigade, Edward Johnson's
Division, Ewell's Corps, composed of the First and Third North Carolina, Tenth,
Twenty-third and Thirty-seventh Virginia Regiments.

The Confederate victory at Winchester had been complete. Milroy lost the
greater part of his army, and his artillery, wagon train and a vast amount of stores
fell into the hands of the victors.

Of the part the Second Maryland Infantry took in the engagement, General
Early, in his official report, makes the following complimentary mention:

. . . . Having received the instructions of the Lieutenant-General commanding,
the wagons, excepting the ambulances and regimental ordnance and medical wagons, were
left at Cedarville, and I diverged from the Winchester and Front Royal turnpike at Ninevah
and reached the Valley turnpike at Newtown, and thence advancing toward Winchester I
found Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert, of the Maryland Line, with his battalion of infantry.
Baltimore Light Artillery, and a portion of the First Maryland Cavalry, occupying the
ridge between Bartonsville and Kernstown. and engaged in occasional skirmishing with a