After Colonel Dorsey’s accession to the command, the campaign was constantly active, and the enemy being nearly as strong in cavalry alone as General Early was in troops of all arms, his cavalry was compelled to contend with great odds. Fights and skirmishes of a greater or less magnitude were of daily and almost hourly occurrence, and with the picket duty to be performed, men and horses were, employed to the utmost limit of endurance. In most of these engagements the Confederates were successful, but in one of them, at Fisher’s Hill, on the 22d of September, the enemy gained considerable advantage by suddenly throwing a heavy force, consisting of two or three divisions, which he had moved up under cover of the North Mountains on Early’s left, upon the line of dismounted cavalry, which was all that General could spare to cover that point. Here, after they had broken the Confederate line, Colonel Dorsey ordered the First Maryland to charge, with the view to check the enemy, if possible, and gain time to bring up reinforcements, but it only availed to release some prisoners and to get the horses of the dismounted men out of the way. In the face of such odds, Dorsey was forced back with some loss, and although severely wounded himself, extricated his command, and made an orderly retreat. CHAPTER IX. The campaign of ’64 in the Valley of Virginia was marked by acts of barbarism and savage cruelty on the part of the enemy, such as history scarcely parallels; but certainly not in the annals of any nation making the least pretense to civilization. In years past, the American heart was wont to burn with righteous indignation at the recital of the wrongs of Poland and Hungary; but then Russia and Austria were but in their rudiments. It was reserved for the “best government the world ever saw” to reduce barbarity to a science, to substitute the torch for the sword, murder for honorable warfare, and to elevate the incendiary’s crime to the dignity of national policy. Having failed to subdue the men of the Southern Confederacy in the field, the soldiers of the Federal army, with such vast odds in their favor, of numbers and resources, with the whole world open to them, and contributing immensely both of men and means—the Federal soldiers, with all these advantages, descended to make mean war upon women and children and dumb brutes, seeking in the sufferings of these helpless victims the victory elsewhere denied them, and thus to strike their foe whom they dared not meet in fair conflict.