After I had first advanced to Gauley Bridge, the
Secessionists behind me were busy sending to the enemy all they
could learn of my force. We intercepted, among others, a letter from
an intelligent woman who had tried hard to keep her attention upon
the organization of my command as it passed her house. In counting
my cannon, she had evidently taken the teams as the easiest units to
count, and had set down every caisson as a gun, with the
battery-forge thrown in for an extra one. In a similar way, every
accidental break in the marching column was counted as the head of a
new regiment. She thus, in perfect good faith, doubled my force, and
taught me that such information to the enemy did them more harm than
good.
As to the enemy's organization and numbers, the only information I
ever found trustworthy is that got by contact with him. No day
should pass without having some prisoners got by "feeling the
lines." These, to secure treatment as regular prisoners of war, must
always tell the company and regiment to which they belong. Rightly
questioned, they rarely stop there, and it is not difficult to get
the brigade, division, etc. The reaction from the dangers with which
the imagination had invested capture, to the commonly good-humored
hospitality of the captors, makes men garrulous of whom one would
not expect it.
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