On August twentieth we embarked on a steamboat along with other troops for Aquia Creek on the Potomac and had the usual overcrowded and uncomfortable experience. We arrived on the twenty-second and were a long time getting ashore by tugs. There was a railroad to Fredericksburg, less than twenty miles away, and we were tumbled into empty freight cars and upon platform cars and taken to Falmouth Station, near Fredericksburg, where we disembarked in the evening and bivouacked.
Next day, after receiving some rations, we started our march up the north bank of the Rappahannock in the direction of Pope's army. The other corps of the Army of the Potomac went up the Potomac river as far as Alexandria, which gave them only half so long a march to join Pope, as the Fifth Corps had had from Falmouth. General McClellan accompanied the main part of the Army to Alexandria.
Our march up the Rappahannock and along the line of the Orange and Alexandria railroad by the way of Bealton, Catlett's and Bristoe Stations to Manassas was a severe one. The heat was so excessive that a man in my company declared "the sun must be in the hydraulics!" Parts of the country seemed to be destitute of water, which caused us great suffering, and many were overcome and dropped by the wayside. We did not have the muddy roads of the Peninsula, but we had an intolerable amount of dust which hung in great clouds over the marching columns and betrayed the movements of the opposing armies. As we neared Bristoe Station, where a stretch of the railroad had been torn up by the Rebels, we began to hear cannonading.
On the morning of the twenty-ninth we started at daybreak for Centreville, passing Manassas Junction, where we saw the ruins of locomotives, cars and immense quantities of rations and military stores totally destroyed by fire a few days before when Jackson's army had slipped around the bewildered General Pope's right and got in his rear, between him and Washington.
We had only just passed Manassas when we were ordered to face about and march in the direction from which we had come on the Warrenton Pike towards Gainsville. Before reaching there some of Longstreet's troops were encountered about noon, concealed in the woods near the Manassas railroad. We took up a position near Bethlehem Church, massed in the rear of the First Division as a reserve. Later in the afternoon very heavy firing was heard some miles away to our right, where the battle of Groveton was being fought. We had a strong force of skirmishers out; so did the enemy. There was much firing between them until dark and some movements as though we were forming for an attack, with the object of preventing Longstreet from sending reinforcements to Jackson at Groveton, but nothing came of it and we remained in our position until daybreak, August thirtieth. The last issue of rations had been, I think, at Warrenton Junction; we were nearly out, in fact had lived on half-rations for the last day. During this night we received a small allowance of hard-tack and nothing else.
On the morning of the thirtieth we marched by way of the Warrenton Pike in the direction of yesterday's battle and took up a position about noon near the center in a cornfield not far from the Pike, my brigade forming the reserve in rear of the First Brigade. We were soon under a heavy fire of shells from the Rebel batteries which kept up with more or less vigor until the middle of the afternoon, when the real battle commenced with General Butterfield's attack on the enemy, strongly posted in a railroad cut towards the right. Historians have described this bloody battle and how, about sundown, our army was out-flanked and forced to retreat. It was about this time that Sykes's regulars were ordered to retreat and did so in good order towards the Henry house plateau, which commanded the road by which the army was retreating in some disorder, towards the stone bridge over Bull Run. Sykes's regulars assisted by some volunteer regiments checked Longstreet's pursuit.
Here for the first time on that day my brigade became engaged with the enemy at the edge of some timber through which they were advancing. For nearly an hour we held our ground, delivering heavy volleys until we were out-flanked, forced to retire, and the fight continued by other troops.
General Warren's Third Brigade, consisting of the Fifth and Tenth New York, about one thousand strong, had earlier in the evening, in an isolated position, sustained the first onslaught of overwhelming numbers of Longstreet's troops. In less than fifteen minutes this small brigade sustained a loss of more than four hundred killed and wounded, the Duryee Zouaves alone losing two hundred and ninety-seven men, a greater loss than that of any other regiment in this battle. During the two days my small regiment lost sixty-six killed and wounded and, singular to relate, only one officer and one private were killed outright; seven others, however, were missing and we did not know what had become of them. The first sergeant of my company, Rudolph Thieme, was among the missing, but no one had seen him fall. A small detail from my regiment, which under a flag of truce recovered Lieutenant Kidd's body, failed to find that of the sergeant, who was an old soldier and expected soon to be commissioned. The mystery of his disappearance was never solved.
When darkness came upon us and the firing ceased, except for a few shots here and there, the second battle of Bull Run was over. We marched by way of the Pike to the Stone Bridge, where we found an indescribable scene of confusion. Ambulances, artillery, army wagons, sutlers, wounded soldiers and stragglers were all crowding towards the narrow bridge, colliding with organized bodies of marching troops and destroying their formation. Slowly and with great difficulty we crossed and re-formed on the other side, taking up our march to Centreville and keeping off the road as much as possible to avoid the confusion there. To add to our misery a steady rain had commenced after dark and kept up all night. The retreat continued until daylight, when the bridge was blown up. We reached Centreville about midnight when, tired and exhausted, we lay on the wet ground and slept until morning.
Able writers and critics have pointed out the monumental blunders of General Pope which nearly caused the destruction of his army, and the advantageous opportunities he failed to grasp, particularly where Lee divided his army by sending Jackson to Manassas in his rear. They also show his vindictiveness towards the meritorious General Porter, who was cashiered after the Antietam campaign, but established his innocence after a struggle which lasted for many years and was restored to the army.