We fell back from Mount Crawford to Harrisonburgh, burning barns, mills and granaries, driving before us cattle and sheep, and bringing white and black refugees without number. From Harrisonburgh we again fell back, retracing our steps through New Market, Mount Jackson and Woodstock, and encamped on the evening of the 8th of October on the north bank of Cedar creek. Each day as we marched, dark columns of smoke rose from numberless conflagrations in our rear and on either flank, where the cavalry was at work carrying out the edict of destruction of the valley. A certain number of mills with the grain contained, a specified number of wheat-stacks and granaries, and cattle and sheep sufficient for the wants of the people of the valley were saved; all other mills, barns, stacks and granaries were burned, and all other cattle and sheep driven away. Seventy mills, with the flour and grain, and over two thousand barns filled with wheat, hay and farming implements were thus committed to the flames, and seven thousand cattle and sheep were either driven off or killed and issued to the men. This destruction, cruel as it seemed, was fully justified as a matter of military necessity. For so long as a rebel army could subsist in the valley, so long a large force must remain to guard the frontier of Maryland. Hundreds of refugees accompanied us from Staunton, Mount Crawford and Harrisonburgh: Unionists who had endured persecution until it was no longer endurable, and who now left houses and farms to find relief in the north from their sufferings for loyalty; and negroes who sought freedom from their ancient bondage. Among the latter class was a group which had followed the cavalry from Staunton, and which now took a place in our Sixth corps hospital train, which attracted universal attention. The party rode in one of the huge Virginia wagons, so familiar to those who have spent much time in those parts, and consisted of an aged colored woman, probably more than ninety years old, one or two younger women, a black man of fifty, who was a cripple, a boy of twelve or fifteen years, and a very large number of small children, varying in hue from jet black to dark brunette. The load was drawn by four broken down, spavined animals, the crippled man riding one of the horses of the rear span, the boy one of the leaders. The soldiers manifested great interest in this curious load of refugees, and freely divided with them their hard tack and coffee. The writer of these pages, reining his horse to the side of the vehicle, addressed the aged negress, "Well, aunty, are all those your children?" "Lor, no massa, dey's only eighteen ob 'em." Doubtless she designed to say that there were only eighteen of the children, not that "only eighteen" were her own.