[709] then impatiently and then angrily. Gradually the fact that we were not to fight that night impressed itself on us. I walked over to the limber of my gun, opened my knapsack, and took out a campaign map and a pair of compasses. Returning to the fire the map was spread on the ground. As I measured the distances a group of excited soldiers gathered around and watched the work. We had the less distance to march, about nine hours the start, and allowing for the time lost at the crossing of the James River we were at 11 P. M. four or five hours ahead of the Army of Northern Virginia. “Will they be in the works by morning, men?” I asked; and all answered, “By God, they will!” Discouraged, I put away the map, loaded a pipe, lighted it, and strolled off down the line, stopping at almost every fire I came to to talk to the infantry soldiers. The rage of the intelligent enlisted men was devlish. The most blood-curdling blasphemy I ever listened to I heard that night, uttered by the men who knew they were to be sacrificed on the morrow. The whole corps was furiously excited. I returned to my battery a little after midnight. Seated on the ground I rested my back against one of the ponderous wheels of my gun. Resting there I slept.
Camp of colored Volunteers before Richmond.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.