Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/444

 this end McClellan was set to work again—a kind of work for which he had proved himself well fitted. The night march of Sigel's corps from Centreville to Fairfax Court-House is like a nightmare in my recollection. By some blunder of the staff, two large bodies of troops were put on the same road at the same time, and that in the dark. In a moment they became inextricably mixed. All orderly command ceased. The road was so densely crowded with men and guns and caissons and wagons and ambulances, that those who were marching absolutely lost the freedom of their movements. One was simply pushed on from behind or stopped by some obstruction ahead. Nor was it possible to march alongside the road, for there the fields or woods were filled with all sorts of vehicles, a great many of them broken down, and by groups of soldiers, who had straggled from the edges of the column, had gathered around little fires and were frying their bacon or heating water for their coffee. I was on horseback in the midst of the column, with one of my staff-officers by my side, who, for a wonder, had succeeded in remaining with me. Our horses would walk on a few paces, half a dozen at the most, then would be forced to stand still, sometimes for minutes, by some stoppage in front. Having had my feet in the stirrups almost constantly for several days and nights, my heels began to ache almost insufferably. I tried to relieve the pain by letting my legs hang down, or by throwing one or the other across the pommel of the saddle, but it was of no avail. Neither could I dismount in order to walk, for the throng around me was too dense to permit it. Indeed, had I succeeded in getting off the horse, I could not have mounted again. So we crawled on, being alternately pushed and stopped, at the rate of a good deal less than a mile an hour, until finally we reached Fairfax Court-House long after sunrise. There we found soldiers stationed at the cross-roads and the street corners,