Confiscate their stocks and farms, Do it with a vigor,

If it will our Union save, Confiscate the ………!

September 20 and 21 found the Yankee Cavalry following the retreating Rebel Army up the Valley through Cedarville and towards the Front Royal Pike finding the enemies cavalry not so spirited and sandy. On the 21^st, Companies I and D combined not totaling more than fifty men charged out of a fog into a woods making as much noise as possible and scattered a rebel brigade "pell-mell". The lead squadron that led this charge was given the post of honor to escort an ambulance train back to union lines on the Front Royal Pike. If it were not for an unsuspected but fortuitous arrival of General Custer's old Michigan Brigade, the squadron would have been captives of Col. Mosby's men. The rest of the regiment continued their travels through the Lurey Valley following the South Fork of the Shenandoah River up to Millford where they established camp that night on the 22^nd, driving Gen. Rosser's Cavalry from their front. The 23^rd found the regiment crossing the river at McCoy's Ford and followed the same valley reaching Harrisonburg on the 25^th. Here they rejoined the Union Army having secured the left flank from enemy cavalry or infantry attacks. On the 29^th of September, the New York boys got into a scrape with Brig. General Thomas Rosser's Rebel Cavalry and some supporting infantry near Waynesboro, and had to crawl out the best way they could arriving at Mt. Crawford on the 30^th.

General James Wilson, Commander of the Third Division of Cavalry had received orders to take command of the Cavalry Corps in the western theater of the war. Brig. General George Armstrong Custer was ordered to take command of the Third Division composed of two brigades of which the Twenty-Second New York was in the Second Brigade. Gen. Custer took command at Mt. Crawford and started his division on its return trip to Winchester the 5^th of October. The cavalry burned all the hay, grain, barns and mills that could be found on their line of march back to Winchester and prior to leaving Mt. Crawford. Houses often caught fire from sparks but in most cases were not deliberately set. Nobody's grain or property were safe unless you were a proven Union man. Even the property of Mennonites and Dunkards were set ablaze and these families supplied no fighting soldiers to the South's cause. All grain in the fields were trampled into the ground by whole regiments. Orders were given to destroy the crops in the fields and the seeds for next Spring's planting as well. Seeds pounded into the ground by horse hooves protected them from burning, which sprouted in the Spring of 1865, after the war was over, resulting in a yield of crops for that Fall's harvest. To this day, the Old Order of Mennonites each August hold a special service to commemorate the event (2). The remnants of Early's army watched helplessly from the mountain ridges, one Georgian soldier writing: "We could see Yankees driving off horses, cattle, sheep and killing hogs. They burned barns, shocks of wheat, corn in the fields and destroyed everything that could shelter man or beast - soon the valley was black with smoke." Estimated losses in Rockingham County alone amounted to $25,000,000.00 in Confederate currency.

By the 8^th of October, the destruction was complete from below Harrisonburg down the valley to Winchester. Corp. Dewitt Crumb of the "Two-Twos" reported "the smoke was so thick it stifled their breath and blinded their eyes." When Yankee troopers were asked why they were burning the barns and destroying crops, the cavalrymen replied "This is for burning Chambersburg!" Chambersburg, Pa. had been burned earlier that summer when the citizens couldn't come up with the money to save their town. When the burning of the valley was completed, General Sheridan reported to Grant; "A crow would need to carry its ration when it flew over the Valley of Virginia."

Confiscate all, everything, Even to their whiskey,

Till they find that to Rebel is getting rather risky.

The Confederate Gen. Thomas Rosser who was the best friend and classmate of Gen. Custer's at West Point continued to harass with his cavalry to such an extent that Custer was ordered by General Torbert to "Whip Rosser or get whipped yourself." On the 9^th of October, General Custer led his two brigades to Tom's Brook where they found Early's supply trains stretched out before them (wagons, ambulances, forges, walking wounded and dismounted cavalrymen) guarded by Rosser's cavalry. Custer's men chased the confederate army that day beyond Columbia Furnace for a distance of thirty miles. They had captured all the artillery in the column and the Twenty-Second New York was conspicuous in capturing fifty wagons, one piece of artillery and over one hundred prisoners at the loss of two men killed. General Custer at one point in the fight went to the front of the Eigth New York and led it on a charge and over ran a six gun battery of artillery. This action was one that was retold many a night over the camp-fire and labeled by the troopers as the "Woodstock Races". Two weeks prior when Custer took command, the men respected him, now they idolized him. It seemed to one individual "that every officer in the command were copying Custer's eccentricities of dress and ready to adore his every motion and word."

On the 13^th, the regiment along with its division marched back down the Valley to Cedar Creek where they went into camp on the right flank of the Army of the Shenandoah. Here they rested, guarded the flank and supplied such details as needed for supply trains or provided escort services. On October 19, Gen. Early and his army surprised Sheridan's army at dawn causing many of the men to flee the field. If it were not for the Third Infantry Division of the Sixth Corps and both Cavalry Divisions, Early might have kicked the Union Army out of the Valley until spring of the next year. Custer's Division kept Rosser's depleted cavalry in check on the right with a strong skirmish line while sending the balance of his division to the Union left flank where with the Second Division of Cavalry helped check the rebel advance. Staying there until the Union line reformed and won back their camps so hastily left that morning, Custer's Division went back to the right of the Union army to its camp of the last several days and started pushing Gen. Tom Rosser's men back up the Valley. This they did picking up stragglers until they reached Woodstock when they turned around on the 21^st and started back to Cedar Creek. General Sheridan in his Official Report writes: "Merrit and Custer were called from the right and put in on the left, where they stayed the course of Early's victory. The strange spectacle was beheld, of 6 or 7 thousand cavalry with a few batteries holding in check and repulsing charge after charge from an army of 20,000 infantry flushed with victory and acting as a shelter behind which the broken infantry was hastily reforming. The only infantry on the line was Getty's Division of the Sixth Corps."