led! And how they swore! Weren't we a tired lot when we halted! It
seemed as if we would go to sleep marching. When we halted we took a few
steps to the side of the road and dropped. We learned the next morning
that we were at Warrenton Junction, where we stayed all day.

Leaving camp early in the morning of August 27, we marched part way back
to Warrenton, just for exercise, very likely. The reports circulated about
Stonewall Jackson being bagged and the like on this campaign are so common
that they have come to be the laughing-stock of every one. We marched most
of the day and halted at night at the village of Greenwich. Just before we
went into camp, Billy started off across the fields a'foraging. When he
returned he brought with him a basket of turnips. He gave me three of them
and that night I cooked and ate them. Well, it seemed to me that I never
ate anything in my life that went to the right spot like those turnips.
Cannonading in our front and clouds of dust rising off to the west and
north on the horizon are almost continuous, and once more comes the report
that Stonewall Jackson is caught at last. It is a mistake to think that
the private soldiers are not, after a certain amount of experience, able
to size up their commanders in a fairly correct way. If there is a master
mind at the head, they know it very quickly, and it did not take the men
of the 21st long to discover that there was no master mind at the head at
that time. So much backing and filling, so much talking about bagging that
old fox, Stonewall Jackson, soon became a matter of ridicule and all our
dependence was placed in General Reno.

August 28. We started early in the morning in the direction of Manassas
Junction, reaching there about noon to find it had been burned. The
storehouse and the trains of cars, all loaded with supplies, were in
smouldering ruins. A few dead rebels lying about was the only redeeming
feature. Late in the afternoon we started for Bull Run and when we camped
in the evening, we were under the impression that we were in the immediate
neighborhood of the old Bull Run battlefield.

August 29. We started early in the morning, passed through Auburn and
headed direct for the firing line; it sounded as if a battle was under
way. A lot of paroled prisoners passed us going to the rear as we moved
along. We soon reached a high hill to the top of which we climbed. We had
a fine view of the center and right center of the Confederate