The next afternoon Hays’ Louisiana brigade was moved around to the enemy’s right with orders to charge a strong line of works whilst the artillery opened upon him in front. Griffin was posted on a commanding hill a little to the left of the pike, and threw his first shell into the very centre of the Star fort. Finding he had the exact range, he commenced a furious fire, which threw the enemy for a moment into the greatest confusion, and greatly assisted Hays in his movement upon their right. The fire was soon spiritedly returned by a Federal Maryland battery, and continued until night, when Milroy evacuated his fortifications and attempted to escape with his army, but in this he was unsuccessful, although he himself succeeded in reaching Harper’s Ferry with a few of his troops. The precision and effect with which the guns of the Baltimore Light Artillery were served upon this occasion elicited the highest praise from General Gordon, to whose brigade it was temporarily attached, and as a mark of the high esteem in which he held the battery, he procured them permission from General Ewell next morning to select from among the captured guns the best pieces, to take the place of their own, which were greatly inferior. The day after the battle of Winchester, the corps of General Ewell took up its line of march towards the Potomac. The Baltimore Light Artillery was directed by some subordinate officers to report to General Nelson of the _reserve_ artillery. The order occasioned the greatest surprise and indignation throughout the command, for always before they had led the advance and covered the retreat. Such an indignity, as they considered it, could not be tamely submitted to, and a protest was immediately drawn up and forwarded to General Ewell, who at once ordered the battery to join Albert G. Jenkins’ brigade of cavalry, which was the van of the army in the invasion of Pennsylvania. The battery crossed the Potomac on the 18th of June, and that day joined Jenkins, when the whole command moved rapidly forward in the greatest good humor. Many were the jokes they practiced, and many the quaint sayings, peculiar only to the soldier. “Take them mice out of your mouth,” one would bawl out as an officer with well waxed moustache rode by; “take ’em out, no use to say they ain’t thar, for I see their tails stickin out.” And as another came along, but a short time in the service, and wearing a “boiled shirt,” and white collar, his ears were sure to be assailed with “say mister how long did you have to soldier ‘afore one of them things growd’ round your neck?” And the staff officer, with handsome cavalry boots, would be requested by a dozen voices to “come out of them thar boots, for it’s too soon to go into winter quarters.”