e black smoke
twining around the trees and curling upward, shrouded the whole earth
with a canopy of black and blue, and told of the destruction that
was going on. Here the troops suffered as seldom during the war for
provisions, especially breadstuff. Loud murmurings were heard on all
sides against the commissary department, and the commissary complained
of the Quartermaster for not furnishing transportation. The troops on
one occasion here had to go three days and at hard work without one
mouthful of bread, except what little they could buy or beg of the
citizens of the thinly settled country. Meat was plentiful, but no
bread, and any one who has ever felt the tortures of bread hunger may
imagine the sufferings of the men. For want of bread the meats became
nauseating and repulsive. The whole fault lay in having too many
bosses and red tape in the Department at Richmond. By order of these
officials, all commissary supplies, even gathered in sight of the
camps, had to be first sent to Richmond and issued out only on
requisitions to the head of the departments. The railroad facilities
were bad, irregular, and blocked, while our wagons and teams were
limited to one for each one hundred men for all purposes. General
Beauregard, now second in command, and directly in command of the
First Army Corps of the Army of the Potomac, of which our brigade
formed a part, wishing to concentrate his troops, ordered all to
Flint Hill, three miles west of Fairfax Court House. General Johnston,
Commander-in-Chief, directed the movements of the whole army, but more
directly the Second Army Corps, or the Army of the Shenandoah. The
army up to this time had not been put into divisions, commanded
by Major Generals, nor corps, by Lieutenant Generals, but the two
commanders divided nominally the army into two corps, each commanded
by a full General--Brigadier General Beauregard having been raised to
the rank of full General the day after his signal victory at Manassas
by President Davis.

[Illustration: Brig. Gen. James Connor Adjt.]

[Illustration: Y.J. Pope, Acting Asst. Adjt. Genl. of
Kershaw's Brigade]

[Illustration: Brig. Gen. John D. Kennedy.]

[Illustration: Dr. Thos. W. Salmond Surgeon of Kershaw's Brigade.]

In the Confederate Army the grades of the Generals were different to
those in the United States Army. A brigade consisted of a number of
regiments joined together as one body and commanded by a Brigadier
General, the lowes