George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[24] with epaulettes and sashes. The ranks were full, a thousand men, marching in close order, moving with the military precision of veterans, and keeping time to the music of a full band, which echoed through the streets. This, as it approached Martinsburg. As the regiment proceeded, mobs of men, some with shreds of uniform, others with shreds of clothing, lined the road-way and squat upon the fence-rails. I could but look with amazement upon this disorganized mass which formed the grand army of General Patterson, as they rushed from field and wood to stare and gaze at the band, the uniform, the steady marching of the men, and their grand equipment of twenty-five or thirty new wagons, each drawn by four showy horses. As the spot designated for an encampment was approached, an increasing mob of Pennsylvanians thronged the streets and surrounded the outer lines of camp, to stare at my sentinels walking their posts as sentinels should, and then to mutter, half in rage and half in vexation, that troops had come among them who obeyed the orders of their officers. Adjoining, however, were camps, where men in homespun, calling themselves sentinels, squatted on the ground like Darwin's great progenitor. They ate on post, sat or squatted on post, smoked and slept on post, sang, talked, and laughed on post, and left their posts, as the humor suited them. To what went on around or within their lines they were cheerfully oblivious and wonderfully indifferent.

From acres of such encampments arose, during the night, song and laughter and boisterous shouts. Lights flashed out, men came and went, and all moved merrily on; while within my lines not a sound arose nor a whisper was heard nor a light burned, nor was there a sentinel who was not walking his round.

On the fourteenth of July, 1861, three days from my arrival at Martinsburg, an order was given to march south to