Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 9.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[482] Johnston, informing them of the attack that day by the enemy at Bull Run, and calling on them to step out and march, so as to be in time for the great battle about to come off. Moving all night, they forded the Shenandoah about sunrise, and never halting once, reached Piedmont after midnight, in a drenching rain. There they halted Saturday, getting scant rations, and about 10 o'clock P. M., were marched to the railroad to get into the cars for Manassas junction. It was 3 o'clock A. M., however, before they got off, and the cars being detained, they did not arrive at Manassas until towards noon.

The division of General Kirby Smith, consisting of the Fourth brigade (Colonel Elzey) and the Fifth (General Smith), was not all up; only the Fourth had arrived. There was then no time for waiting. Colonel Elzey immediately ordered knapsacks to be piled and struck off in a swinging pace for Manassas. Before then the regiment had been using a State flag presented at home to Captain Johnson's company. Captain Snowden, the regimental commissary, brought up a little blue Maryland color sent from Baltimore for the regiment, It was fastened to the lance by the side of the other one. Just then Kirby Smith galloped up. “The watch-word is Sumter, the signal is this,” said he, throwing his right hand above his forehead, palm outwards and forward. “Forward Maryland!!” On they sprang at double-quick by the Junction, over the fields, across roads, straight as the crow flies, toward the sound of the quickening cannon.

“What are my orders?” said Smith to an aid galloping up. “Go where the fire is hottest.” Forward over the hot Manassas plains went the brigade--First Maryland on the right, Tenth Virginia, then Third Tennessee. The Thirteenth Virginia had been sent another way. The terrible heat stifled the men, the dust choked their parched throats; all were on foot, the officers' horses having been left at Piedmont, but not a man fell out of ranks; now they came to wounded and bleeding men, but they only ran on the faster. They crossed a stream of mud, stirred by thousands of men and horses; catching handfuls, they thrust it in their mouths without stopping.

A field officer, without a hat, galloped by. “Hurrah, Maryland,” he shouted, and the regiment responded with a cheer and sprang forward with renewed vigor. After running thus five miles they were halted to load, thus giving them a moment's breath. But almost instantly “forward” is the order, and on they push brisk as ever. Rushing up an open slope, crested by a thin wood, they passed over Cash and Kershaw, of South Carolina, waiting orders. Just then half a dozen shots from the woods struck General Smith from his horse. In