November 4. Reports were flying around camp early in the morning that the Johnnies were pouring through Ashby’s Gap in force and that they meant fight. At nine o’clock we started for Ashby’s Gap, but on our arrival there, there was not a Johnnie in sight—another of those old-fashioned false reports. We moved on as far as Manassas Gap the 5th. All the way along as we approached we could hear the artillery at the gap. Our men occupied the east end and the Confederates the west end. Some one said the artillerymen were paying their respects to each other.
November 6. We moved back from the mountain range about ten miles to the town of Orleans. The next morning we started out and marched a few miles, then filed left, crossed a narrow field into a piece of woods and stacked arms. After sitting around a little while I started out to see if I could find a house and get something to eat a little out of the ordinary, for to be constantly eating hardtack and salt horse became a little monotonous after being indulged in month after month.
I passed along through a series of fields on high ground, then bearing a little to the right passed through a strip of wood from the farther side of which a ridge appeared a few rods out in the field. When I reached the top of the ridge, the looked-for-house appeared in sight a few rods down the other slope, and down to it I went. When I got within five or six rods of the house, a Johnnie came out and walked off down towards some wood on the farther side of the field. This opened my eyes, and then I saw for the first time that that wood down there was alive with Johnnies—not an ordinary picket post but a regiment, or a brigade was there. There were tents and camp-fires in large numbers. I must have been five or six rods from the house, and the wood where the Johnnies were, some eight or ten rods beyond, when I made this discovery, but this was no time to hesitate.
I walked down to the house and asked the woman if she had any corn-bread to sell. She said, “No, I have just sold the last I had to one of our men.” That “our men” showed me at once that she knew who I was. I stepped out into the yard, took a look around and sauntered back up over the hill again. When I got out of sight of the house I quickened my steps until I was a good distance from that camp.
November 8. A change of great importance has taken place in the army. General McClellan has been relieved of command of the “Army of the Potomac,” and General Burnside, the old commander of the 9th Army Corps, has been put in his place.
Here ends the Maryland campaign. We shall soon start on a campaign that will be known as the Fredericksburg campaign under General Burnside.