The work of reorganization went forward very rapidly. Although the destination of the corps remained as great a mystery as ever, it was evident that preparations for an important movement were being perfected, and that we might be ordered suddenly to leave. On the evening of the 22d the command was ordered to be in readiness to march, and before daylight of the 23d the delightful camp was broken up, and the corps took up its line of march, not toward the harbor, but in the direction of Washington, following the line of the Elk Ridge and Annapolis Railroad. After a march of thirteen miles the corps bivouacked in the fields for the night. Very early on the 24th the march was resumed. In about six hours we reached the Baltimore and Washington turnpike, and at nightfall the corps went into camp near Bladensburg, distant about eight miles from the city of Washington. At four o'clock on the morning of Monday, the 25th, reveillé was sounded; but, owing to a severe shower, the regiment did not march until about eight o'clock. When the march was resumed the corps passed through Bladensburg and continued in the direction of the city. We reached the outskirts of the capital about noon, and halted on New York avenue for the command to close up, as we were to pay a marching salute to the President and General Burnside, who were to review us from a balcony of Willard's Hotel. It soon became known that the corps was to pass through the city, and the streets along the line of march were densely packed. The column was greeted with cheers and applause. Many spirited descriptions of this imposing scene were published at the time in the journals of the day; but none is more graphic than the following, taken from a Memorial-Day Address, at Beverly, Mass., by Honorable R. S. Rantoul, May 30, 1871, seven years after the scene narrated:—
"On the 25th of April, 1864, I stood, at high noon, on a thronged sidewalk of the city of Washington. Across the street, and raised on a balcony above the surging crowd, a lank, sad man stood gazing wistfully down—his head uncovered—upon the passing scene beneath. An unutterable sadness seemed to have fixed itself upon his face. For the most part he was unnoticed by the long procession, which, hour after hour, with frequent pauses, but with elastic tread, pushed on through dust and sweat, for Long Bridge, a few rods off—then over the Potomac and into Virginia. In dull succession, company on company, battalion by battalion, brigade after brigade, wearily yet cheerfully, they tramped on under that Southern sun, sometimes singing, oftener thoughtful, never seemingly regretful. It was one of those soft, vernal days, whose very air, as if breathed from groves of oranges and myrtle, seemed able to melt all hearts. Music there was; but strangely, as it seemed, not of that martial strain, associated, in piping times of peace, with the rush of battle. Exquisite music there was from martial bands, but for the hour they seemed to have attuned themselves to melodies of home and love. Shoulder to shoulder, looking not back, asking not whither, marched the bronzed veteran of East Tennessee and Carolina, with regiments of raw recruits,—tradesmen and mechanics from the towns, the farmer and frontiersman of the West, the lumberman from his Eastern forest, Indian sharp-shooters attached to Western infantry, favored sons of culture and wealth, the first black division, five or six thousand strong, following the white State flag of Massachusetts, batteries of artillery, squadrons of cavalry; mingling with these or pressing hard upon them, commissary wagons, ambulances, and quartermasters' trains, stuffed with the equipage of hospital and camp; and, last of all, as far as the eye could reach, fat beeves choked up the dusty way. Solemnly the mighty mass moved forward to confront its fate. Many a brave man felt that day that he was crossing Long Bridge never to return. Little heed paid they that the eye of Lincoln was upon them; little ardor they caught from sad, sweet music or the cheers and greetings of the thronging streets! Little was there for them of pride, pomp, or circumstance of glorious war! Grim resolve and cheerful devotion were the lessons of the hour!
"Ask where you would, you got no clue to their destination, for no one knew it! They had waited long at Annapolis, expecting to be ordered off by sea. Not a man, that day, of all those marching legions, knew whither he was going!
"'Theirs not to reason why!
Theirs but to do and die!'
"Only the lank, sad man, who gazed from his high place upon them, hat in hand, as though with a friend's last look, and the few high officials about him, knew more than that the Ninth Army Corps, twenty-five thousand strong, had been ordered from Annapolis to Alexandria! The veil of the future was not yet lifted."
Chaplain Woodbury says, "It was a spectacle which made many eyes grow moist and dim. And thus the corps that had never lost a flag or a cannon marched through Washington. Crossing Long Bridge the troops went into camp about two miles from Alexandria."
Even then many of the men still cherished the hope that transports would be in readiness for them at Alexandria. But these notions were soon put to flight. To the corps was assigned the duty of guarding the Orange and Alexandria Railroad from the Potomac to the Rapidan; and reluctantly the fond hopes of a coast expedition and an independent movement were abandoned.
On Wednesday, April 27th, at ten o'clock A.M., the brigade left Alexandria to follow the divisions which had been advanced toward the Rappahannock, and after a fatiguing march of sixteen miles encamped at night three miles beyond Fairfax Court-House. The next day the march was continued over the ground made historic in 1861, through Centreville, and past the old earthworks at Manassas. At noon we halted an hour for dinner on the Bull Run battle-field. Afterwards we forded the Run, and at six o'clock, having marched eighteen miles, went into camp at Bristow Station, on the field where the Second Corps achieved a brilliant victory the autumn before.
At six o'clock the next morning the brigade was in line, but did not move out of camp until half-past nine; marched then about half a mile, and countermarched, and marched again, until finally, about three o'clock, we went into camp near the railroad, on new ground, which was ordered to be laid out according to army regulations. The corps was being distributed along the line of the railroad in supporting distance, and the progress was very slow.