From the Valley.
When the busy campaigns of spring and summer have opened, and a portion of the Army of Northern Virginia has left from before Richmond, eager eyes run up and down the columns of your daily bulletins to gleam the latest intelligence from the Valley. But when winter sets in, and only a few cavalry are left with us, we seem to be forgotten; and a voice from the Valley must occasionally be heard to remind our friends that, though silent, we are not inactive.
The winter quarters of the enemy are thirty miles below us; our pickets five miles above, which makes our position disagreeably neutral, and subjects us to frequent raids, to which we are compelled to submit quietly. Every expression of resentment and indignation must be repressed or met with threats of smoking ruins and desolated homes.
Heretofore we have felt that we could at least rest undisturbed at night, but they have recently come upon us at midnight, and, with thundering raps at the door, demand entrance, which, meeting with no immediate response, bolts and bars proving feeble barriers, are burst asunder, and before we are fully aroused to a sense of our danger, they have penetrated ever corner of the house, to find, perchance, some rebels, for each one of whom they are promised a thirty days furlough.
Information is duly given them, by tories in our midst, of all that is necessary for them to know. As an instance of it, a soldier, who had gotten home in the evening, and whose neighbors knew nothing of his arrival, was loudly called upon from the street, that same night, by the Yankees to "come down out of his fifteen days furlough." This is but one instance out of a hundred.
However, this winter's dreary catalogue of endurance is greatly brightened by a brilliant little exploit, of which our village was the scene on Sunday, the 22d. History will be replete with deeds of greater daring, but justice claims a record of the bravery displayed on this occasion.
About four o'clock in the morning, a party of Yankees, numbering seventy-three in all, under command of Major Young (falsely representing himself to be a member of Sheridan's staff), passed around the town, and, avoiding the outer picket at Edinburg, dashed upon the reserve at an unguarded point, capturing sixteen men. Their recent successes rendering them very careless, they turned about and leisurely retraced their steps, but had not proceeded far when about twenty of our men, who were scattered through the country, were quickly called "to horse," and, commanded by their gallant leaders, Captain Granstaff and Lieutenant Moler, of the Twelfth Virginia, pursued the villains, and drove them into their breastworks at Strasburg, recapturing every man of the sixteen, and adding to their number twenty-five Yankees and as many horses. We have since learned that they fled most precipitately to Winchester, doubtless imagining that the "Saviour of the Valley" was after them with his whole division. The valiant little Major Young barely escaped captured. His horse was shot and he left hors du combat; but, with the characteristic meanness of a Yankee, he compelled one of his men to dismount and give him his horse, and thus succeeded in getting under shelter of his breastworks. His short career is soon reviewed, being confined to night attacks upon the houses of defenceless women, who long to wield their only weapon of defence against him in such a manner as will reflect universal credit upon their sex. We have to thank the raiders for one unintentional kindness in carrying with them a serpent, which we have nursed in our bosoms for four years, in the shape of a Union man, who left with many threats against the unfortunate denizens, and will no doubt return to give them some more tangible evidence of his loyalty to Abe.
