of preparation gained me some "red-letter" marks
at the war office. The Secretary thought that a train would be in
readiness at 9 o'clock that night. Accordingly, the regiment was marched
to the station, where we remained several weary hours. At length, long
after midnight, our train made its appearance. As the usual time to
Manassas was some six hours, we confidently expected to arrive in the
early forenoon; but this expectation our engine brought to grief. It
proved a machine of the most wheezy and helpless character, creeping
snail-like on levels, and requiring the men to leave the carriages to
help it up grades. As the morning wore on, the sound of guns, reechoed
from the Blue Ridge mountains on our left, became loud and constant. At
every halt of the wretched engine the noise of battle grew more and more
intense, as did our impatience. I hope the attention of the recording
angel was engrossed that day in other directions. Later we met men,
single or in squads, some with arms and some without, moving south, in
which quarter they all appeared to have pressing engagements.

At dusk we gained Manassas Junction, near the field where, on that day,
the battle of first "Manassas" had been fought and won. Bivouacking the
men by the roadside, I sought through the darkness the headquarters of
General Beauregard, to whom I was instructed to report. With much
difficulty and delay the place was found, and a staff officer told me
that orders would be sent the following morning. By these I was directed
to select a suitable camp, thus indicating that no immediate movement
was contemplated.

The confusion that reigned about our camps for the next few days was
extreme. Regiments seemed to have lost their colonels, colonels their
regiments. Men of all arms and all commands were mixed in the wildest
way. A constant fusillade of small arms and singing of bullets were kept
up, indicative of a superfluity of disorder, if not of ammunition. One
of my men was severely wounded in camp by a "stray," and derived no
consolation from my suggestion that it was a delicate attention of our
comrades to mitigate the disappointment of missing the battle. The
elation of our people at their success was natural. They had achieved
all, and more than all, that could have been expected of raw troops; and
some commands had emulated veterans by their steadiness under fire.
Settled to the routine of camp duty, I found many opportunities to go
over the adjace