es. Here the
color-bearer of a regiment, his color lying beside him, lay gasping for
breath; there a colonel, his horse tied to the fence, strove to fan the
air into a little life with his broad-brimmed hat. Under one little
clump of cedars might be seen an exhausted group of line officers,
captains and lieutenants, and under the next, a number of enlisted men
who could no longer keep the road. The spectacle along the roadside
became appalling. Regiments became like companies, and companies lost
their identity; men were dying with sunstroke; and still the march was
continued. This could not last much longer, for the brave men who still
held out were fast losing strength, and soon there would be no troops
able to move. At length, at nearly three o'clock, we came in sight of
the little, old, depopulated town of Dumfries. Here, to the joy of all,
we saw men filing into the fields for a halt. There was no cheer, no
expression of gladness; for the tired men, with feet blistered and raw,
worn out by seventeen hours' constant march, almost melted and
smothered, cared little for demonstrations. Throwing themselves upon the
ground, they rested for half an hour, and then, rousing long enough to
cook their coffee, they refreshed themselves with their hard tack, pork
and coffee, and were ready to sleep. Here the Vermont brigade was drawn
up in line, and some half a dozen men, skulkers, principally from the
Twenty-sixth New Jersey, were drummed out of camp, the bands of the
brigade playing "The Rogues' March." All who were participants of that
day's work, remember it as the most trying march of the Army of the
Potomac. Very grateful to the weary army was sleep that night, but, at
two o'clock in the morning, the shout passed along the line, "fall in!
fall in!" And so, without coffee, we rolled our blankets and fell into
line. But, as often happens, when the whole army is to move, some parts
must wait long before the others are out of the way. So we of the Sixth
corps waited until four o'clock, and got our coffee finally before the
rest of the column had made way for us. It was another hot, dusty day,
but not so intolerable as the day before, and about two or three o'clock
we arrived at Occoquan creek, crossing at Wolf Run Shoals. Here we had
two or three hours' rest. The men had no sooner halted than they plunged
into the stream, and the wide creek was soon alive with swarms of men
splashing and diving in the cooling element.

It was