On the morning of
the 6th, Saturday, we were ordered to be prepared to march at 12 o'clock. We
started about 1 o'clock towards the Rappahanock. It rained in the afternoon, and
I was soaked to the skin, and the road very muddy. We dragged along until
10 o'clock at night and were then ordered to camp without fires. We slept on
the wet ground in a perfect heap; 10,000 or 12,000 men lying promiscuously on
the side of a public road, like so many tired hounds, was a novel sight, or
rather sound, to me. I slept soundly, except when waked up by the rain falling
in my face. At daylight on Sunday morning we were ordered to form and were
marched back over the same road to our camp near Culpepper, a distance of
sixteen miles. We remained there until morning, when we moved to this place,
about half a mile farther from Culpepper. This marching and countermarching is
what the military authorities call making a demonstration. It is a tiresome and
monotonous business, but if it accomplishes the purpose for which I left home I
will be satisfied.
SOURCE: John Camden
West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a
Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, pp. 58-9
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