Monday, March 13, 2017

Diary of 1st Lieutenant Lemuel A. Abbott: Sunday, August 28, 1864

Received marching orders for to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock last evening. We were up at 3 o'clock a. m. and ready to march at daylight, but did not until near 8 o'clock. The Nineteenth Corps marched on our left in three different columns and the Sixth Corps moved on the right in the same order. We took dinner about two miles from Charlestown, and marched again about 1 o'clock p. m.; went through Charlestown about 3 o'clock p. m., with the bands playing “Old John Brown” to the accompanying chorus of the entire column. It was grand! We camped on our old ground just outside the city; no signs of any enemy yet.*
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* It is a fact that General Crook's Corps, when forming line near Berryville, was “blundered” into by General Kershaw's Division of infantry and artillery en route to Petersburg via Ashby's Gap. After a little brush in which Kershaw got the worst of it, he fell back. This was a great disappointment to General Sheridan, as Kershaw was detained fifteen days longer.

SOURCE: Lemuel Abijah Abbott, Personal Recollections and Civil War Diary, 1864, p. 140-1

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