Our battery remained all day of the 14th in park, with the teams hitched up and attached to the carriages, expecting every moment to be ordered to the front. One battery of our division, Capt. Roemer's, moved out of park, and started toward Loudon about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and again we looked for the expected order.
Sharp skirmishing, with an occasional artillery duel, continued all day. Just at night our troops advanced upon the enemy and drove them back to their bridge-head, where they held them during the night.
On the morning of the 15th Gen. Burnside ordered a retreat upon Lanoir's Station, and by daylight the whole command was upon the road, followed by the enemy, they pushing their skirmishers forward with considerable caution. At dark that night our army bivouacked at Lanoir's, and with the exception of a rather vigorous attack upon our lines at ten o'clock in the evening, which was easily repulsed, we were not further molested.
After dark on the 14th the men of the battery not on guard improved their last opportunity to enjoy one more night in their huts. It was noticed that there was none of that happiness and hilarity which had prevailed to such an extent the night before. The faces of the men expressed an amount of seriousness which had not been present then.
The morning of the 15th still found the battery waiting for orders to move. Early in the morning troops of the Twenty-third Corps began to pass our camp, and as it seemed to us, in some confusion, but Gen. Burnside soon appeared and restored order, after which everything moved with clock-like precision.
Just before five o'clock in the afternoon the battery moved out of park to the road, and commenced its march towards Campbell Station. Not more than three miles had been accomplished before we began to have trouble. The rain which had commenced the night before still continued, and had softened the clayey soil of the road into a clinging substance which made it almost impossible to move the battery. There was a series of hills to climb, and our only way was to take the horses from the caissons and put them on the pieces, and haul them to the top of the hill, and then go back and haul up the caissons; this was repeated several times before we had reached the railroad crossing. It was now three o'clock in the morning, and the officer commanding the rear guard informed us that we must get ahead at once, as he should be unable to hold his position after daylight, as Gen. Longstreet's advance was close at hand. Capt. Buckley had in the mean time sent word to Gen. Burnside of our situation, and he had ordered some mule teams to our relief. The teams soon made their appearance, and the mules were quickly hitched on, and we were on the move again. The wagons that had been left in order to send us (and also the other batteries) the mule teams, were burning as we passed them, as it was impossible to move them.
By this time it had grown quite light, and the rapidly increasing fire in our rear and on the left convinced us that we were being pushed by the enemy. As an incentive to increase our efforts and hurry us along during the night, we had been frequently told that unless we reached the junction of the Kingston and Loudon roads before daylight, we should be cut off and become prisoners of war to Gen. James Longstreet. It was now long past daylight, and we were several miles from the junction. Fortunately for us our pursuers had been unable to reach that point.
Gen. Longstreet had detached a column under Gen. McLaw and ordered him to proceed by the Kingston road to this point. Having secured a guide perfectly familiar with the road, but who, unfortunately for Gen. Longstreet's plans, happened to be a staunch Union man, who became so strangely mixed in his bearings that when daylight appeared Gen. McLaw found himself several miles from his objective point.
In the meantime Gen. Burnside had sent Gen. White with his division out upon the Kingston road, with orders to extend his line to the left until it joined the right of the Ninth Corps, and hold the enemy until the artillery had passed.
It was shortly after ten o'clock in the forenoon when Battery D passed the Kingston road, and continued on towards the village of Campbell Station, noted as the birth-place of Admiral Farragut. Passing through this village we were ordered into position upon the right of the road, about half way up a long, steep hill, above the village.