erseded by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston.
The trains over the B. & O. Railroad were still running. Evidences of
the John Brown raid were plainly visible, and the engine-house in which
he and his men barricaded themselves and were captured by the marines,
commanded by Col. R. E. Lee, of the United States Army, stood as at the
close of that affair.

One or both sections of the battery were often engaged in picket service
along the Potomac between Shepherdstown and Williamsport, in connection
with the Second Virginia Regiment, which was composed of men from the
adjoining counties. Their camps and bivouacs were constantly visited by
the neighboring people, especially ladies, who came by the score in
carriages and otherwise, provided with abundant refreshments for the
inner man. As described by those who participated in it all, the days
passed as a series of military picnics, in which there was no suspicion
or suggestion of the serious times that were to follow. During the
progress of the war, while these outward demonstrations, of necessity,
diminished, the devotion on the part of the grand women of that
war-swept region only increased.

I have not undertaken to describe scenes or relate incidents which
transpired in the battery before I became a member of it. But there is
one scene which was often referred to by those who witnessed it which is
worthy of mention. It occurred in the fall of 1861, near Centerville,
when a portion of the army, under Gen. Joe Johnston, was returning from
the front, where an attack had been threatened, and was passing along
the highway. A full moon was shining in its splendor, lighting up the
rows of stacked arms, parks of artillery, and the white tents which
dotted the plain on either side. As column after column, with bands
playing and bayonets glistening, passed, as it were, in review, there
came, in its turn, the First Maryland Regiment headed by its drum corps
of thirty drums rolling in martial time. Next came the First Virginia
Regiment with its superb band playing the "Mocking-Bird," the shrill
strains of the cornet, high above the volume of the music, pouring forth
in exquisite clearness the notes of the bird. Scarcely had this melody
passed out of hearing when there came marching by, in gallant style, the
four batteries of the Washington Artillery, of New Orleans, with
officers on horseback and cannoneers mounted on the guns and caissons,
all with sabers waving in cadence to the sound of the