At twelve o'clock
to-day our battalion left Clarksburg, followed a stream called Elk creek for
eight miles, and then encamped for the night. This is the first march on foot
we have made. The country through which we passed is extremely hilly and
broken, but apparently fertile. If the people of Western Virginia were united
against us, it would be almost impossible for our army to advance. In many
places the creek on one side, and the perpendicular banks on the other, leave a
strip barely wide enough for a wagon road.
Buckhannon, twenty
miles in advance of us, is said to be in the hands of the secession troops.
To-morrow, or the day after, if they do not leave, a battle will take place.
Our men appear eager for the fray, and I pray they may be as successful in the
fight as they are anxious for one.
SOURCE: John Beatty,
The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 10-11
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