our
courage and pressed forward; for now we had reason to believe that a
great battle was raging, which would, we hoped, be decisive of the
salvation of the Republic, and we prayed that if any exigency had
arisen or should arise--which seemed not improbable--in which the
militia reserve should be needed to turn the fortunes of the day in
favor of our arms, we might not be too late.

Some three miles beyond Hunter's Run we passed a poor cabin--the first
human tenement we had seen since leaving the Mount Holley paper mill.
Pitch darkness was now fallen upon us. Here were gathered a motley
crowd of stragglers--thirty or forty in number--from regiments in
advance of us. They had built fires in different parts of the premises,
and looked, as they sat and stood huddled around them, like
gipsies--their faces red in the ghastly fire-light. Some were moving
about under the trees of the door-yard, like phantoms. At a short
distance in rear of the cabin thin parallel streaks of light were
visible, as if shining through the chinks of a barn. Here, it was
evident, another squad was quartered. As we passed this group of
shadows, and plunged again into the gloomy darkness, the spectral
sight, as we looked back, seemed like a phantasmagoria of Hades.

A mile further and we halted--a thicket along the road-side offering a
retreat only less forlorn than the miry road. Rubber cloths were spread
and we lay down for a little sleep. But the work of the day was not yet
ended. About midnight we were roused again by the order "Forward
column!"--a forced march indeed! The exigency, it was evident, must be
great! On, on, through rain and mire, one mile, two miles, three miles
to the hamlet of Laurel Forge, indistinguishable in the darkness, which
gave refuge to all that remained of what was twelve hours before a
proud regiment, filling the mountains with the echoes of its fervid
patriotic song, now a forlorn, exhausted handful of men clutching
greedily the shelter and the hope of rest which the grimy forge
offered. From this category must be excepted one company which,
occupying the right of the column, had forced the passage of the flood
at Hunter's Run when we first reached it on our march, the imminent
peril attending which had caused the order of countermarch to be given
to the rest of the regiment. They reached the dusky hamlet before dark
and passed the night in comparative comfort.

Thus closed at Laurel Forge--now forever associated in