As the different commands of our army moved forward, they converged on the road leading from Yorktown to Williamsburg with the result that this road was soon packed with horse, foot and artillery, all pushing eagerly forward, and without overmuch regards for right of way.
Company D, holding the right of the regiment, was a pleased auditor to a little conversation between Colonel Caldwell and the irate commander of a regiment the Eleventh had unceremoniously displaced. The displaced commander was evidently, by manner and seat in the saddle, a regular officer, which then meant among other things, an officer with large ideas of his own importance as a trained military man, and small ones of all volunteer officers.
"Sir," roared he, riding up to Colonel Caldwell, "How dare you march across the head of my command?"
The Colonel looked at him in his large placid way, without answering him, much as a mastiff looks at a snarling terrier.
"Do you know who I am, sir?" yelled the angry commander, now doubly enraged at the elaborate indifference, and the apparently studied silence of our Colonel. "I am Major so-and-so of such and such a regiment."
"And I," answered Colonel Caldwell, smiling blandly, touching his cap with military courtesy as he spoke, "And I am Colonel John C. Caldwell, commanding the Eleventh Maine Regiment of Infantry Volunteers, and am quite at your service, sir."
Speechless with rage, and fairly gasping at the haw-haw of approval we country bumpkins gave the Colonel's answer, Major so-and-so backed his horse a little, turned him, and galloped away in as furious a state of mind as any gallant Major ever galloped in.
This bright May day was spent by the infantry in marching and halting while the cavalry pressed forward on the heels of the flying enemy. Towards night the regiments went into bivouac. Then the men scattered for foraging purposes. The inhabitants had mainly fled to Richmond, perhaps naturally, they consisting of women, children and male antiquities generally, McClellan's report stating that every able bodied male of the Peninsula was in the ranks of the rebel army.
They went hastily, evidently. I remember one house from which the occupants had fled just as they were about to seat themselves to a meal apparently, for the table was spread with dishes and untouched victuals. Loading themselves with food and furniture from these deserted houses, the boys returned to camp.
My particular group of D slept that night on a feather bed, spread on the ground, with sheets, quilts, pillows—all the accompaniments. But, alas, it began to rain heavily in the night, so that before morning our downy nest of the evening before was about as comfortable a sleeping place as a bed-tick filled with mush and milk would be—a soaked, oozing, nasty mess.