Preparing for the assault.
Soon after getting back to camp (from our feint) orders came to feed up and be prepared to move—then a little after dark, orders to get into light marching order—to leave canteens and everything calculated to make any noise in marching—ammunition up—or fill cartridge boxes—fall in—move.Then we knew we were in for some heavy fighting, and our boys were eager to get it too—for they wanted a chance to get back at them for Berryville Pike (September 19th), where they pushed us hard to hold the Pike.
There near Winchester they had killed our much beloved General Archie Godwin, and it came near being worse for us than at Cedar Creek. It would, too, but for Godwin's Brigade, which held them [197] back against vast odds on the Berryville Pike, and kept them from getting into Winchester, in the rear of our army and trains, and thereby cutting off the rest of the army, which extended away over to beyond the Martinsville Pike, where Rodes was killed. It was right in the Berrville Pike, while praising his men for having just repulsed a heavy assault, thereby saving our right flank, which we covered, from being turned and the army cut off, that our dear General Archie C. Godwin was killed (and who, by the way, never got the credit which was justly his due).
