George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

As one approaches Cedar Creek, going south towards Orange Court House, a gentle descent for half a mile leads to the low ground, through which the creek winds in a northwesterly and southeasterly course. Where the road begins its descent a thick wood skirts it on either side for some four hundred yards. From that point turn northerly, and, leaving the road, follow the ridge for about twelve hundred yards to a house, with thick forest-trees on the north and west. Here my brigade was stationed: it was the extreme right of our line of battle, and was the exact position designated by General Roberts.

Returning to the road, and crossing the creek, it will be found that in nine hundred yards beyond it an ascent has been made, and a plateau four hundred yards in depth crossed. Just beyond the plateau there was on our left, on the 9th of August, 1862, a cornfield, and on our right a growth of timber, which, touching the road at a point, widened out as it extended back, until in front of my position it was from four to six hundred yards in depth. Beyond this timber there was a stubble-field, bounded on the opposite side by thick woods. This stubble or wheat field, cut out as it were from the forest, was somewhat in the form of a parallelogram, of which the two sides, at right angles to the road, were about eight hundred yards in length. One of the short sides of the field rested on the road, and was about six hundred yards long; while the other, skirted by brushwood the height of a man's head, was only about four hundred yards. Clearing the cornfield, which was of the same width on the road as the wheat-field, there was on the left a ridgy plain or pasture, which continued for a third of a mile, and then the timber began again. On the right the timber lined the road as soon as the wheat-field was passed, and continued for nearly a mile. The cornfield and the plain extended away