Ironton Register 22 Sept. 1887 – M.J. Cullen stood at the ring in the fairground, watching the horse trot, and when the horses pulled up from under the string, and the yelling ceased, the Register reporter, took him by surprise by demanding a “Narrow Escape.”
“Oh,” said he, “This is sudden, and I don’t see how I can gather much of one memory now.”
“Well, something,” insisted the reporter, “there must be some experience that clamors through the memory in spite of the horse races and the whooping crowd.”
“Yes,” said he, “that’s so, but a fellow is not likely to hit on his best one that will appear the most thrilling. Now one occurs to me that will seem very tame to the casual reader, but it was a very exciting ‘Narrow Escape.’ There was not much blood spilled, in fact, none but the rebs about had us, and it’s a wonder we escaped.
“I belonged to Battery B 1st Virginia Artillery. We were all mounted. The incident to which I am referring occurred on the 16th of July 1864. Early’s Army was retreating from Maryland and our section of two guns under Lieut. Mel McLaughlin was sent to delay and persecute his wagon train.
There was a very exciting and novel experience. Our battery was supposed to be a part of the 13th and 14th Pennsylvania and our program was to get on the flanks of the wagon train, fire into it, break a section or two of it, and drive the wagons out of the train and back into the woods or behind the hills.
We had thus captured about a hundred wagons. It was a very exciting experience. Our two guns would get into position a half mile or so from the train, fire into it, frighten and terrorize the teamsters and guard, and then with infantry support, we would dash down on the train and drive off all the wagons in reach, and then skip out to another point ahead and try the same thing over.
“This we had been doing with great interest [till] finally, we struck the train too near the rebel rear guard, which was a rather numerous one. We were booming away at the wagon train, cutting it into convenient links to handle, which we looked on both sides and back of us and there were the rebs coming in droves to swallow us up. It was the big rear guard of Early’s Column.
Well, you know, it looked ragged for us at that time. Then, they opened on us and kept closing in. We started out of there with our guns. As we turned the number one gun, the caisson tumbled over, and the gun itself ran plumb up against a tree, breaking the pole of the wagon. Just about then, we were in a bad fix. Lieut. Mel McLaughlin – you know him – jumped down and cut us loose [from] the horses. Then we concentrated and started to break through. There were forty of us artillerymen. We broke for a road nearby and got into that, bringing our remaining guns with us. Then we went banging and galloping down the road, the rebs blazing away at us in a lively manner.
Now the funny thing about the whole matter is that though surrounded and shot at furiously, every man got out of there. We didn’t lose a man or get a scratch. We lost one gun, that was all, and it was all the pieces we lost during the war.
“So you see, our ‘Narrow Escape’ is not the blood-curdling kind (I might have given one to two of them), but it was a decidedly interesting affair to me and the boys, for there was never such good luck. We kept down the road, got away from the rebs, but didn’t try for any more of that wagon train. We had wagons enough.”
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