p as he made his way out through the
struggling mass; and woe be to him that was hatless! as the stream that
trickled from above, over head and clothes, left him in a sorry plight.

CHAPTER XIII

CIRCUITOUS NIGHT MARCH--FIRST DAY OF SECOND MANASSAS--ARRIVAL OF
LONGSTREET'S CORPS

Here we halted long enough for a hurried breakfast for men and horses.
Sleep did not seem to enter into Jackson's calculations, or time was
regarded as too precious to be allowed for it. We were on the move again
by noon and approaching the scene of the battle of July, 1861. This was
on Thursday, August 26, 1862, and a battle was evidently to open at any
moment. In the absence of Henry, our gunner, who was sick and off duty,
I was appointed to fill his place. And it was one of the few occasions,
most probably the only one during the war, that I felt the slightest
real desire to exclaim, with the Corporal at Waterloo, "Let the battle
begin!" About two P. M. we went into position, but, before
firing a shot, suddenly moved off, and, marching almost in a
semi-circle, came up in the rear of the infantry, who were now hotly
engaged. This was the beginning of the second battle of Manassas, during
the first two days of which, and the day preceding, Jackson's command
was in great suspense, and, with a wide-awake and active foe, would have
been in great jeopardy. He was entirely in the rear of the Federal
army, with only his own corps, while Longstreet had not yet passed
through Thoroughfare Gap, a narrow defile miles away. The rapid and
steady roll of the musketry, however, indicated that there was no lack
of confidence on the part of his men, though the line of battle had
changed front and was now facing in the opposite direction from the one
held a few hours before. Moving through a body of woods toward the
firing-line we soon began meeting and passing the stream of wounded men
making their way to the rear. And here our attention was again called to
a singular and unaccountable fact, which was noticed and remarked
repeatedly throughout the war. It was that in one battle the large
majority of the less serious wounds received were in the same portion of
the body. In this case, fully three-fourths of the men we met were
wounded in the left hand; in another battle the same proportion were
wounded in the right hand; while in another the head was the attractive
mark for flying bullets, and so on. I venture the assertion that every
old soldier who