that is, among those whose
duty was only to execute. Longstreet had been recalled from the Virginia
Peninsula; Hooker's hosts again lined the Stafford Heights across the
Rappahannock. At evening we listened to the music of their bands, at
night could see the glow of their camp-fires for miles around. On June
2, Ewell's corps first broke camp, followed in a day or two by
Longstreet's, while A. P. Hill's remained at Fredericksburg to observe
the movements of Hooker. On the eighth we reached Culpeper, where we
remained during the ninth, awaiting the result of the greatest and most
stubbornly contested cavalry engagement of the war, which continued
throughout the day in our hearing--at Brandy Station. The Federals
having been driven across the river, our march was resumed on the tenth.

On the following day we heard, at first indistinctly, toward the front
of the column continued cheering. Following on, it grew louder and
louder. We reached the foot of a long ascent, from the summit of which
the shout went up, but were at a loss to know what called it forth.
Arriving there, there loomed up before us the old Blue Ridge, and we,
too, joined in the chorus. Moving on with renewed life, the continued
greeting of those following was heard as eye after eye took in its
familiar face. We had thought that the love for these old mountains was
peculiar to us who had grown up among them; but the cheer of the Creoles
who had been with us under Jackson was as hearty as our own.

We passed through Little Washington, thence by Chester Gap to Front
Royal, the first of our old battlegrounds in the Valley, having left
Longstreet's and Hill's corps on the east side of the mountain. At
Winchester, as usual, was a force of the enemy under our former
acquaintance, General Milroy. Without interruption we were soon in his
vicinity. Nearly two days were consumed in feeling his strength and
position. Our battery was posted on a commanding hill north of the town,
the top of which was already furrowed with solid shot and shells to
familiarize the enemy with its range. Our battery now consisted of two
twenty-pound Parrott, and two brand-new English Blakeley guns, to one of
which I belonged. And a singular coincidence it was that in putting in
the first charge my gun was choked, the same thing having occurred on
the same field a year before, being the only times it happened during
the war. I went immediately to the third piece and took the place of No.
1