the hope that we would be permitted to rest over Monday; for we sorely
needed it, and felt that, should we be marched then into the van of
battle--what with our physical exhaustion and our wasted ranks--we
could make but a poor show of fight. But it seemed the exigency was too
urgent to admit of delay. We therefore pulled up stakes again, strapped
our luggage to our backs, shouldered our pieces, and marched forward in
the direction of Gettysburg.

A hard march of fifteen miles over a rough mountain road that pretty
much all the time went up or down, and occasionally by long stretches,
brought the column to Cashtown, a cross-roads settlement, ten miles
north-west from Gettysburg, where the mountain road meets the
Gettysburg and Chambersburg pike. Here we bivouacked in an orchard.
This place is memorable to the Twenty-Third regiment on account of a
sad disaster there befalling, in which one of our number was the
unhappy actor. He fired off a musket charged with ball cartridge,
supposing he was only snapping a cap, directly into the ranks of the
Twenty-Eighth regiment of our brigade, wounding two men--one of them
mortally. No sooner was the lamentable event known to the regiment than
they took instant steps to make the only reparation in their power.
They subscribed on the spot a purse of some twelve hundred dollars,
which they duly paid, for the relief of the families of the victims.

We had thought to make this spot memorable in a very different and
happier way, viz., by the capture of the rebel train bearing the
precious spoils which the enemy had taken from our people. But we were
too late; it had all got safely past before we came up. That furious
storm which had broken over us in the mountains, rendering the roads
impassable or extremely difficult, had been the agent of Providence to
hold us back. However disposed on the spur of the moment and in the
vexation of disappointment we may have felt to regard our delay as an
unmitigated misfortune, depriving us of a golden opportunity of earning
a direct share, however small, in the glories of Gettysburg, still we
may be sure a wiser hand than ours guided the issues of those memorable
days. It is probable that the cavalry force of Imboden, guarding that
important train, was large; at any rate large enough to have trampled
out our handful of men had we made an attack. Had the skies favored we
could hardly have reached Cashtown a day sooner than we did without
making forced