rd movement, the following order having been
promulgated:--

Head-Quarters First Division, }
Department of the Susquehanna, }

Waynesboro', July 11th, 1863.

The Brigadier-General Commanding calls the attention of the command
to the certainty of an early engagement with the enemy, and it is
strictly enjoined upon Brigade, Regimental and Company commanders
to attend at once to the condition of the arms and ammunition of
the men under them.

No time is to be lost in putting the arms in perfect order and
seeing that the boxes are filled with cartridges.

The rations on hand must be cooked and put in haversacks, so that
no detention will ensue when the order to march is given; and also
that the men may not suffer for food, when it is impossible for the
supply trains to reach them.

By order of

Brig.-Gen. W. F. SMITH.

It was found that few or none of us had the full complement of forty
rounds of ball cartridges in good order, our stock never having been
replenished since we left Fort Washington. Our ammunition pouches being
of insufficient capacity we had been obliged to carry a portion of the
cartridges in our haversacks, which, in common with the clothes we
wore, had been repeatedly soaked by the rain.

About the middle of the afternoon we heard distinct cannonading, which
proved to proceed from a skirmish arising out of the movement of
General Meade toward the front of the enemy's position at Williamsport.
Reports were current, and credited, of another general battle on
yesterday, in which Lee had been worsted, and it was expected that it
would be renewed to-day. Thus we had on the whole a good prospect of
being present, and having a share, in the enactment of another scene in
the glorious drama. Toward sunset came marching orders. We proceeded in
the direction of Hagerstown. Some two miles or more out the road
crosses the Antietam, the bridge over which the rebels had destroyed.
We waded the stream without wetting our trowsers, and marched our feet
dry before coming to a halt for the night, some three or four miles
further on. We were now on the soil of Maryland, the bridge over the
Antietam being a little south of "Masonandicksun"; and we accordingly
set up the air of "Dixie" with Yankee variations and a rousing chorus.

Just at dark we turned into a clover field and bivouacked noiselessly,
spreading our rubber cloths and lying down, each man