Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/111

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When we u.ic obliged to make bread lor ourselves there was in- convenience in getting good water at that ramp. The only spring u.is f.ir off and not good, but, had the water been abundant and of the be.st quality, \\e could make very poor bread with it. At nearly every " nu-.ss." some inventive fellow would devise some way of his oun for mixing his ingredients (flour, water, salt, and soda), but the result of each experiment seemed to be identical. The men like mountains groaned, the result was always a ridiculous mass, which, when baked, resulted in what was familiarly known then and long afterwards as a "flap-jack." At each camp we left nailed to trees, or laid up among the boughs, some specimens of our bread, hoping that "our friends, the enemy," might come along hungry and eat, and die of indigestion to save us the pain of killing them. Before many weeks we got over our dread of the ear-bugs, and discarded our bunches of cotton with which we at first stopped our ears at bed- time.

At this camp we were brought nearer than we had been to the enemy, except when the battery was at Harper's Ferry. We had the First Virginia cavalry, under Colonel (afterwards General) J. E. B. Stuart, not far off in our front, guarding the fords of the Potomac and watching the enemy under General Patterson; and we had fre- quent communication with Augusta and Rockbridge companies which were in this regiment.

We had now and then alarms sounded in the evening and morn- ing "devotions," conducted by our clerical captain. Many a fellow went from prayers to his leafy bed with a vague uncertainty whether or not he would wake up a dead man, like the Assyrians of old.

At last, on July 2, 1861 (Tuesday), the alarm was materialized, so to speak, and we were ordered to take up the line of march to- wards the enemy. The cavalry reported Patterson on the south of the Potomac, and moving southward towards us, and not so far off as we wished him to be. Our baggage-wagons were sent to the rear, and we were supposed to have three days' rations in our haver- sacks. The infantry had defiled from their camps, and taken up their line of march northward several hours before the order was given for us to set out. We followed the pike about two miles when we were halted, and the heavy six-pounder brass gun was ordered forward. The rest waited more or less impatiently, on rising ground, in full hearing of brisk skirmishing with small arms in front of us, but out of sight of the combatants. No one person could de- scribe the sensations of either those who were chosen to go, or of