of the hills around Spottsylvania Court House and
hold it till the other two Corps could come to our aid.

We marched all night, a hard, forced march over muddy roads, through the
damp, close night. Soon after the start from our bivouac, a brigade of
infantry had filed into the road ahead of us, and we could hear, behind
us on the road, though we could not see for the darkness, the sound of
other troops marching. The Brigade ahead of us, we soon found, to our
gratification, to be Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade, now under command
of General Humphreys, since the gallant Barksdale fell at the head of
his storming columns at Gettysburg. This was the Brigade to which we had
belonged in the earlier organization of the artillery. It was a
magnificent body of men, one of the most thorough fighting corps in the
army, as they had showed a hundred times, on the bloodiest fields, and
were soon, and often to show again. There was a very strong mutual
attachment between the First Richmond Howitzers and Barksdale's Brigade,
and we were much pleased to be with them on this march. We mingled with
them, as we sped rapidly along, and exchanged greetings, and our several
experiences since we had been separated.

The morning of the 8th of May broke, foggy and lowering, and found us
still moving swiftly along. The infantry halting for a rest, we passed
on ahead, and for some time were marching by ourselves. I well recall
the impressions of the scene around us on that early morning march. Our
battery seemed all alone on a quiet country road. The birds were singing
around us, and it seemed, to us, so sweet! Everybody was impressed by
the music of those birds. As the old soldiers will remember, the note of
a bird was a sound we rarely heard. The feathered songsters, no doubt,
were frightened away, and it was often remarked, that we never saw
birds in the neighborhood of camp. So we specially enjoyed the treat of
hearing them, now and here, in their own quiet woods, where they had
never been disturbed. All was quiet and still and peaceful as any rural
scene could be. It seemed to us wondrous sweet and beautiful! All the
men were strangely impressed by it. They talked of it to one another. It
made our hearts soft, it brought to the mind of many of those weary,
war-worn soldiers, other quiet rural scenes, where lay their homes and
dear ones, and to which this scene made their hearts go back, in tender
memory, and loving imagination. All the eyes