e officers of our detachment, it was
agreed to evacuate our position and join our regiments wherever we
could find them. We had no rations, and this was one of the incentives
to move. But had the men been supplied with provisions, and the matter
left to them alone, I doubt very much whether they would have chosen
to leave the ground now occupied, as we were in comparative safety and
no enemy in sight, while to join our commands would add largely to
the chances of getting in battle. I am sorry to say a majority of
the officers were of that opinion, too. Some brought to bear one of
Napoleon's maxims I had heard when a boy, "When a soldier is in doubt
where to go, always go to the place you hear the heaviest firing," and
we could indistinctly hear occasional booming of cannon high up
the river, indicating that a part of the army at least was in that
direction.

So we moved back and over the breastworks, on to the plank road
leading to Orange Court House. Making our way, keeping together as a
battalion, up that road in the direction of the Wilderness, near noon
we could hear the deep bay of cannon, now distant and indistinct, then
again more rapidly and quite distinguishable, showing plainly that Lee
was having a running fight. Later in the day we passed dead horses and
a few dead and wounded soldiers. On every hand were indications of the
effects of shot and shell. Trees were shattered along the road
side, fences torn down and rude breastworks made here and there,
the evidence of heavy skirmishing in our front. Lee was pressing the
advance guard that had crossed at one of the lower fords back on the
main army, crossing then at fords opposite and above the Chancellor's
House. Near sundown the firing was conspicuously heavy, especially
the artillery. The men of most of the companies evinced a desire to
frequently rest, and in every way delay our march as much as possible.
Some of the officers, too, joined with the men and offered objections
to rushing headlong into battle without orders. I knew that our
brigade was somewhere in our front, and from the firing I was
thoroughly convinced a battle was imminent, and in that case our duty
called us to our command. Not through any cowardice, however, did the
men hesitate, for all this fiction written about men's eagerness for
battle, their ungovernable desire to throw themselves upon the enemy,
their great love of hearing the bursting of shells over their heads,
the whizzing of mi