In a few days after taking up quarters at Camp Davis, there were issued and delivered to us Springfield muskets, bayonets, scabbards, cartridge boxes, but no ammunition. With these muskets we performed quarter guard, the chief objects of which seemed to be to keep the men out of the city, and to give us some knowledge as to the handling of arms. In accomplishing the first named purpose it was vain; the guards had muskets, but no powder and ball, therefore if anyone were desirous of passing the lines into the city, he had only to wait until the sentry turned on his beat to walk away, then glide quickly across the line; but when the sentry did catch a fellow, he usually made him stand at the point of his bayonet, marking time, until the corporal of the guard could answer the call and conduct the prisoner to the guardhouse. Consequently a different remedy was resorted to by the officers, viz.: The frequent call of the roll, by which the absentees were readily ascertained. This had the effect of lessening the practice of going into the city without permission.

We remained in Lynchburg eight days, breaking camp at Camp Davis Friday the 31st day of May, 1861, and departing that evening in freight cars over the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, for Manassas Junction, a distance of one hundred miles or more. After a long, tiresome, all-night ride, we reached Manassas at sunrise on the morning of June 1st, the morning on which occurred, at Fairfax Court House, a skirmish between the Federal and Confederate outposts, in which Capt. John Q. Marr, of Fauquier, was killed and Major Ewell wounded. The Confederate post at Manassas was named "Camp Pickens" in honor of Governor Pickens of South Carolina.

Chapter VI

The day, or second day, after arriving at Manassas, began the organization of the 24th Virginia Regiment of Infantry, with companies from the counties of Carroll, Floyd, Montgomery, Henry, Franklin, Patrick, Mercer and Giles, including our company, the regiment numbering about one thousand men. In our company were J. Tyler Frazier, the company Chaplain, Thomas S. Taylor, James B. Henderson, the Eggleston boys, and perhaps others not now recalled, whose custom and habit was not to retire at night until they had held devotional exercises, thanked God for His past mercies and blessings, and asked His care and protection during the night. This they had not failed to do since leaving home. Taps were sounded at nine o'clock, when all lights must be extinguished. One night at Manassas taps sounded while the boys were at their devotions. Colonel Hairston, seeing the light in their tent still burning, had the boys marched to the guard house; but they were soon released.

After two or three days at the Junction, we marched seven or eight miles to Davis' Ford on the Occoquan river, a stream formed by the junction of Cedar Run, Broad Run, and Bull Run, where we went into camp, pitching tents in a field on the right of the road, behind a skirt of pines which lined the northeast bank of the stream. The Occoquan here is small, with high banks. The field where we camped was barren, not even covered with grass. Our beds were mother earth, our rations were cooked in frying pans and camp-kettles, and we had to wash our own clothes, often without soap.

Company drill was our daily avocation, and when well and closely followed was quite irksome, especially in warm, sultry weather. We also performed quarter guard and did picket duty, the latter by detachments from the various companies, under the command of a commissioned officer, arranged by alternate service. The picket post was nearly a mile in advance of the camp, the small stream flowing between.

No one but a soldier can form any proper conception of the feelings and imaginations of a green boy performing his first night's picket duty on the outpost, and in order to give some meager idea of such a situation, the writer will here relate his personal experience during his first night on the outpost.

It must be kept in mind that the private soldier is supposed to be a mere machine, which, if not in working order, may somewhere along the line produce friction. This machine is supposed to know nothing but his duty and obey orders,—the instructions of his superiors. If placed on outpost duty and told that there is nothing in front of him but the enemy, to keep a sharp lookout, and to warn of the approach of danger, he is not expected to ask questions. My time came to go on duty at ten o'clock at night. The night was cloudy and dark, but pleasant. I was placed on the road by which it was supposed the enemy might come, and given the countersign. From ten o'clock to twelve, midnight, was the time I had to remain, unless the enemy captured or ran me away. What a long two hours! The silence was oppressive. I stood peering through the darkness, away a half a mile or more from any human being, so far as I knew, imagining that every noise or bush shaken by the passing breeze was a veritable foe.

The long two hours had nearly passed away, when—hush! in the distance, on the hard beaten road, not two hundred yards away, came the sound of approaching hoof-beats. Yankees, of course! Who else could they be? I had no information that any of our troops were on the road in front of us. What should I do? To fire before challenging and alarm the camp would be highly improper; to run away without challenging or firing would be an act of cowardice. So, nerving myself as well as I could under the circumstances, remembering the instructions and countersign, I awaited the coming of the party with all the courage I then seemed to possess. Supposing them to have approached to within some fifty yards,—though it was most likely a hundred yards—I challenged the party, and was answered, "Friends, with the countersign." Then the rejoinder, "One of you dismount, come forward and give the countersign," which was quickly done, and the party passed on; and you, gentle reader, may be assured there was one on his first night's picket duty who breathed with more ease. The spell was broken,—thereafter I had less trouble when on the outpost.