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.*
_______________
* 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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