BACK TO VIRGINIA
After the battle of Sharpsburg the brigade, with the Confederate troops, re-crossed the Potomac River and camped about Winchester until the latter part of October.
I rejoined the army near Winchester about the 25th of September, 1862, going by railroad to Staunton in company with several men of Company C, who had been home on sick and wounded furloughs, from whence we tramped down the pike and back road, a distance of ninety-odd miles to and beyond Winchester.
The second day, I think it was, we left the rock road, crossing over to the back road in order to procure rations more easily along the way, which we did without any trouble, buying our food from the farm-houses along the road, and sleeping in the woods at night. It took four or five days to make the trip.
With the main army, the brigade left Winchester about the 25th of October, marched up the rock road some distance, then struck across towards the Blue Ridge, wading the Shenandoah River, waist-deep or more. Along the farther side of the river, I remember there were some grand old sycamore trees growing with wide-spreading branches. Whenever I read of or hear Stonewall Jackson's dying words, "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees," I think of those sycamores on the Shenandoah, under which I have no doubt Jackson and his men rested in the long ago.
We crossed the Blue Ridge at Thornton's Gap, not far from Sperryville, passing through Madison, Rappahannock, Orange, and Culpeper counties. Through Madison County the road ran for some distance along Robinson River, which has the rockiest bed I ever saw, literally covered with small boulders, not very small at that, some of them. We arrived at Culpeper Court House about the 3d of November. In the meantime, the enemy had crossed the Potomac and were then near Warrenton, Fauquier County, and about the middle of November moved towards Fredericksburg.
The army remained in Culpeper and Orange counties until about the 19th of November, 1862, when it moved on towards Fredericksburg, where the brigade arrived about the 25th of November, stopping by the way several times, going through the Wilderness country—large tracts of woodlands, miles and miles in extent, which afterwards became famous as the ground on which several bloody battles were fought—a part of the way along the old plank-road, going into, as was thought, winter quarters, building "dog houses," some two miles south of Fredericksburg.
The Yankee army, now commanded by General Burnside, was in camp on the opposite side of the Rappahannock River, on what was called Stafford Heights, which overlooked the town and country on the south side, their thousands of white tents being in plain view from the hills on the south side of the river.
The Yankees always camped in the open fields, where they pitched their tents. The Confederates camped in woods after the first year, when improvised shelters were used, for few were the tents they had.
The camps of both armies extended along the river, on either side, some twelve or fifteen miles. The picket lines were along the river banks, in sight of each other, but no firing was done; instead, the soldiers sometimes clandestinely crossed over, swapping tobacco and coffee—the "Johnnies," as the Yankees called the Confederates, having the tobacco, and the "Yanks" the coffee. Newspapers were also exchanged.
While here many of the men were without shoes, and beef hides were issued to make moccasins, but this was a poor shift for shoes, and did little or no good.