Virginia Military Institute, where he had been sent to be kept out of
the army. He wore a cadet-cap which came well over the eyes and nose,
and left a mass of brown, curly hair unprotected on the back of his
head. His joy at being "mustered in" was irrepressible. He had no ear
for music, was really "too good-natured to strike a tune," but the songs
he tried to sing would have made a "dog laugh." Within an hour after his
arrival he was on intimate terms with everybody and knew and called us
all by our first names.

The march of this day was one of the noted ones of the war. Our battery
traveled about thirty-five miles, and the infantry of the brigade, being
camped within a mile of Harper's Ferry, made more than forty miles
through rain and mud. The cause of this haste was soon revealed. General
Fremont, with a large army, was moving rapidly from the north to cut us
off, and was already nearer our base than we were, while General
Shields, with another large force, was pushing from the southeast,
having also the advantage of us in distance, and trying to unite with
Fremont, and General McDowell with 20,000 men was at Fredericksburg. The
roads on which the three armies were marching concentrated at Strasburg,
and Jackson was the first to get there. Two of our guns were put in
position on a fortified hill near the town, from which I could see the
pickets of both the opposing armies on their respective roads and
numbers of our stragglers still following on behind us, between the two.
Many of our officers had collected around our guns with their
field-glasses, and, at the suggestion of one of them, we fired a few
rounds at the enemy's videttes "to hurry up our stragglers."

The next day, when near the village of Edinburg, a squadron of our
cavalry, under command of General Munford, was badly stampeded by a
charge of Federal cavalry. Suddenly some of these men and horses without
riders came dashing through our battery, apparently blind to objects in
their front. One of our company was knocked down by the knees of a
flying horse, and, as the horse was making his next leap toward him, his
bridle was seized by a driver and the horse almost doubled up and
brought to a standstill. This was the only time I ever heard a
field-officer upbraided by privates; but one of the officers got ample
abuse from us on that occasion.

I had now again, since Winchester, been assigned to a Parrott gun, and
it, with another, was ordered into positi