red me to send two companies to strengthen the
outpost. I preferred, however, to go myself to the scene of the trouble;
and, after investigation, concluded that the guard had been alarmed by a
couple of cows.

Another lot of secession prisoners, some sixty in number, passed by this
afternoon. They were highly pleased with the manner in which they had
been treated by their captors.

The sound of a musket is just heard on the picket post, three-quarters
of a mile away, and the shot is being repeated by our line of sentinels.
* * * The whole camp has been in an uproar. Many men, half asleep,
rushed from their tents and fired off their guns in their company
grounds. Others, supposing the enemy near, became excited and discharged
theirs also. The tents were struck, Loomis' First Michigan Battery
manned, and we awaited the attack, but none was made. It was a false
alarm. Some sentinel probably halted a stump and fired, thus rousing a
thousand men from their warm beds. This is the first night alarm we have
had.

22. We hear that General Cox has been beaten on the Kanawha; that our
forces have been repulsed at Manassas Gap, and that our troops have been
unsuccessful in Missouri. I trust the greater part, if not all, of this
is untrue.

We have been expecting orders to march, but they have not come. The men
are very anxious to be moving, and when moving, strange to say, always
very anxious to stop.

23. Officers and men are low-spirited to-night. The news of yesterday
has been confirmed. Our army has been beaten at Manassas with terrible
loss. General McClellan has left Beverly for Washington. General
Rosecrans will assume command in Western Virginia. We are informed that
twenty miles from us, in the direction of Staunton, some three thousand
secessionists are in camp. We shall probably move against them.

24. The news from Manassas Junction is a little more cheering, and all
feel better to-day.

We have now a force of about four thousand men in this vicinity, and two
or three thousand at Beverly. We shall be in telegraphic communication
with the North to-morrow.

The moon is at its full to-night, and one of the most beautiful sights I
have witnessed was its rising above the mountain. First the sky lighted
up, then a halo appeared, then the edge of the moon, not bigger than a
star, then the half-moon, not semi-circular, but blazing up like a great
gaslight, and, finally, the full, round moon had climbed to the top,
an