December 23, 1864
More Refugees. - And. W. Mauck and John W. Parks, refugees from the South lately arrived safe within our lines. They are residents of Rockbridge county, Virginia, which place they left, in company with six other individuals, the latter part of October. The stringent conscription of the rebel Government was the cause of their leaving. Mauck, for the last two years, has followed the business of shoemaking. Until October last, shoemakers were exempt from military duty; but upon the 18th of that month an act was passed annulling former regulations in regard to them. Parks was a school teacher. The party of eight had got about seventy five miles from home, when they met a party of bushwhackers, armed to the teeth. Without a word of parley or warning, the refugees were fired upon, the volley breaking Mauck's left arm, badly lacerating his right hand, and killing a young man by the name of John Rawlings, a printer from the Lexington Gazette office. The Unionists then fled to the woods, and managed to elude their pursuers. The first hiding place was in the Cheat Mountain, where they skulked about from Friday noon until Sunday. On Tuesday they arrived at Beverly, where they were joined by thirteen other refugees from Lexington - among them Josiah McNutt, editor of the Lexington Gazette. From Beverly the whole party traveled to Parkersburg, where the party broke up. Mauck's wounds were of a serious character, but were doing well. Both men were clad in Confederate homespun, armed with pistols, and provided with a small quantity of coarse rations.
Before leaving Lexington, one of the party disposed of seven hundred dollars' worth of southern money at a banker's, for which he received twenty one dollars in gold and silver. The men had a small quantity of Confederate currency - new issue. The notes were engraved at Columbia, S. C., and were neatly executed. We examined two specimens - a five and a ten. The former had a passable likeness of Jeff. Davis in the corner, and a vignette view of the rebel Capitol at Richmond. The latter presented a portrait of Howell Cobb, and a vignette, representing a battery of field artillery going into action. Both notes promised their redemption "two years after a ratification of peace with the United States."
Mauck furnished the following list of prices at Lexington:
| Flour | $250.00 per brl. |
| Pork | $4.50 per lb. |
| Beef | $1.50 per lb. |
| Coffee | $18.00 per lb. |
| Sugar | $12.00 or 13.00 per lb. |
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: Undated: December 1864