Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[517] Cumberland,

June, 1860.

where it remained, near the banks of the Potomac, until the next day. Its advent astonished all, and gave pleasure to the Unionists, for there was an insurgent force at Romney, only a day's march south from Cumberland, said to be twelve hundred strong; while at Winchester there was a much heavier one. General Morris, at Grafton, had warned Wallace of the proximity of these insurgents, and directed him to be watchful. Wallace believed that the best security for his troops and the safety of the railway was to place his foes on the defensive, and he resolved to attack those at Romney at once. He procured two trusty guides at Piedmont, from whom he learned that there was a rude and perilous mountain road, but little traveled, and probably unguarded, leading from New Creek Station, westward of Cumberland, to Romney, a distance of twenty-three miles. That road he resolved to traverse at night, and surprise the insurgents, before he should pitch a tent anywhere.

Lewis Wallace.

For the purpose of deceiving the secessionists of Cumberland, Wallace went about on the 10th with his staff, pretending to seek for a good place to encamp, but found none, and he told the citizens that he would be compelled to go back a few miles on the railway to a suitable spot. All that day his men rested, and at evening the train took them to New Creek, where Wallace

Romney battle-ground.1

and eight hundred of his command left the cars, and pushed on toward Romney in the darkness, following their guides, one of whom was afterward caught and hanged for his “treason to the Confederacy.” It was a perilous and most fatiguing march, and they did not get near Romney until about