Milroy's command debouched into the Valley of the Shenandoah, already memorable for its many bloody conflicts, and destined to become yet more memorable by reason of still other and far bloodier battles. This war-stricken valley, from Staunton to the Potomac, was beautiful and rich, and its inhabitants were, prior to the war, proud and boastful; they possessed many slaves to till the soil and for personal servants. It was also a breedingground for slaves which, in a more southern market, brought great profit to their owners. Winchester was the home of the Masons and others, distinguished as statesmen and soldiers through all the history of Virginia. But not all the inhabitants of the Shenandoah Valley were disloyal. A majority of its voting population was, before the war actually commenced, in favor of the Union, and its Representatives voted against an Ordinance of Secession. I have seen an address of Philip Williams, Esq., an old, respected, and distinguished lawyer of Winchester, made when the question of Secession was pending, in which he attempted to depict the horrors of the war that would follow an attempt to set up an independent government. He prophesied that the valley would be a battle-ground for the contending hosts; that the fields would be overrun, the crops destroyed, grain and stock confiscated; and the slaves carried off and set free. His address brought him for a time into ridicule. He lived to see his word-picture appear as only a vain, faint representation of the reality. When the war came, and his sons and friends joined the Confederate Army, his sympathies were with the South. He often recurred, however, to his more than fulfilled prophecy. He lived to see the valley for ninety or more miles of its length reek with blood; the houses, whether in city or village, turned into hospitals, and the war-lit fires of burning mills, barns, and grain stacks illuminate the valley and the mountain slopes to the summits of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies on its east and west. Pen cannot adequately describe the hell of agony, desolation, and despair witnessed in this fertile region in the four years of war; and long before the conflict ended not a human slave was held therein. It, however, has long since, under a new civilization, recovered its wonted prosperity, and no inhabitant thereof, though many are the sons and daughters of slaveholders, desires to again hold slaves. Not all the affluent ante-bellum inhabitants of this valley owned slaves or believed in slavery. Many were Quakers, others Dunkards (or Tunkers), all of whom were, by religious training and conviction, opposed to human slavery, hence opposed to Secession and a slave power. Some of the younger men of Quaker or Dunkard families through compulsion joined the Confederate Army, but the number was small. Though opposed to war, no more loyal Union people could be found anywhere. Their Secession neighbors called them "Tories," and the Quakers descendants of Tories of the Revolution. It was common to hear related the story of the imprisonment at Winchester, under General Washington's order, of certain Quakers of Philadelphia, claimed to have been Tories, who were given a twenty-mile prison-bound limit, and who, when peace came, coveting the rich lands of the valley, and being humiliated over their imprisonment, sent for their families and settled there permanently. Whether or not this story gives the true reason for the early settlement of Quakers in Virginia, certain it is that they were loyal to the Union that Washington helped to found and opposed to human bondage. Milroy's enthusiasm over Emancipation was put in practice when he entered Winchester. Without seeing the Proclamation of the President, and without knowing certainly it was issued and made applicable to the Shenandoah Valley district, Milroy issued a proclamation headed, "FREEDOM TO SLAVES." This had the effect of causing those within the lines of his command at once to leave their masters. Though the slaves could not read, not one failed during the succeeding night to hear that liberty had been proclaimed, and all, even to the most trusted and faithful personal or house servant, regardless of age, sex, or previous kind treatment, so far as known, asserted their freedom. In some way it had been inculcated into the minds of these people that if they, by word or act, however |