Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 1

Five miles to the Washington dock and three more to camp on the Alexandria side, eight in all, with the load each man carried, made labor enough for the first trial. We watched southward from the vicinity of R. F. Roberts's farm and had for a single brigade a wide front to protect.

As soon as I received the War Department note, making me a brigade commander, I visited, selected, and brought over to my vicinity from their several camps near Washington three other regiments-the Fourth Maine, Colonel Hiram G. Berry; the Fifth Maine, Colonel Mark H. Dunnell, and the Second Vermont, Colonel Henry Whiting commanding. The latter was a graduate of the Military Academy. My lieutenant colonel was absent, so Major Staples passed to the head of the Third Maine on my temporary promotion. Notwithstanding the usual depletions of new regiments, my command was at this time above three thousand strong. McDowell soon sent me forward as far as Mrs. Scott's farm, sometimes called “Bush Hill,” four miles from Alexandria. The Maine regiments held the country to the south of the Centreville Pike, and Whiting's Vermonters had a handsome position in a field to the north of it.

About that time there was much camp criticism of McDowell, who had in charge the army of occupation officially called “the Department of Northeast Virginia.” The accusers said that he had too much tenderness toward the enemies' property. Regular officers were berated generally in the soldier gossip and in the newspapers for using up the soldiers in guarding such property. This conduct, however, did not proceed,