We left Upperville,
near Snicker's Gap. very early in the morning, having served in the 3d Corps,
Army of the Potomac about five weeks. On the march back we met the 12th Corps,
meeting the 5th and 20th Connecticut Regiments of that corps. Met Charlie Corey,
a boyhood friend from my old home in Hanover, New London County. It was a short
meeting but we talked fast. Charlie had been in service a little over two years
in the 5th Regiment, while I had been in eleven months. His mother often read
his letters to me before I came to be a soldier. A pleasant meeting for a few
moments. On our backward march we kept pushing along, stopping to rest at one
point. Blackberries grew wild, we picked our coffee cups full and ate them
while we marched along. Nothing of special interest took place, but by the time
we reached Harper's Ferry, twenty miles march, we were tired and foot-sore.
After a short rest and rations we were obliged to push on toward Sharpsburg,
twenty miles further on. Darkness coming on we did not have the hot sun beating
down upon us. The marching was over rough, stony roads, up hill and down.
Reaching Sharpsburg along in the night, we learned the boys were in camp about
two miles out of town, so we pushed on, reaching the camp at midnight, a march
of about forty miles. The boys were sleeping, except the guard and the pickets.
They did not know that we had arrived. We were glad to drop down on the ground
and get sleep and rest after the severe march from Upperville, Virginia, to the
town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The command now numbered about two hundred.
Consolidated into two companies. Our meeting was a very happy one. We talked
over the events that had taken place during the past few weeks that we had been
separated, and wondered how our boys in prison were getting along.
SOURCE: Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary,
1862-1865, of Charles H. Lynch 18th Conn. Vol's, p. 26-7
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