JACKSON’S TROOPS PILLAGING THE UNION DEPOT OF SUPPLIES AT MANASSAS JUNCTION.
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I was roused by a courier’s horse stepping on my leg, and found this rudewaking meant orders to move. With no idea whither, we pulled out at half-past two in the morning, and for some time traveled by fields and “ new cuts”in the woods, following no road, but by the growing dawn evidently keepingup the river. Now Hill’s “Light Division” was to earn its name and qualifyitself for membership in Jackson’s corps. The hot August sun rose, cloudsof choking dust enveloped the hurrying column, but on and on the marchwas pushed without relenting. Knapsacks had been left behind in thewagons, and haversacks were empty by noon; for the unsalted beef spoiledand was thrown away, and the column subsisted itself, without process ofcommissariat, upon green corn and apples from the fields and orchards alongthe route, devoured while marching ; for there were no stated meal-times, andno systematic halts for rest. I recall a sumptuous banquet of “ middling ”bacon and “ collards ” which I was fortunate enough to obtain during thedelay at Hinson’s Mill where we forded the river, and the still more daintyfare of tea and biscuits, the bounty of some good maiden ladies at “ ThePlains,” where our ambulance stopped some hours to repair a brokenaxle—the only episodes of the march which now stand out with distinctness.It was far on in the night when the column stopped, and the weary men