A. J. Bennett, private , First Massachusetts Light Battery, The story of the First Massachusetts Light Battery , attached to the Sixth Army Corps : glance at events in the armies of the Potomac and Shenandoah, from the summer of 1861 to the autumn of 1864.

[133] from the Middle States, especially those of Teutonic origin, know so well how to inaugurate and conduct. We should judge that the major portion of the line, rank and file, of the troops upon the ridge and of those upon the east slope and neighboring plain, were present to witness the climbing of the slippery pole, and the chasing of the pig, and to partake of the good things that might be afforded. So hilarious, not to say uproarious, was the returning crowd which streamed down the east slope to their camps, that a reverend chaplain of another Pennsylvania regiment, who was holding a meeting in a nook at the foot of the hill, felt constrained to criticise the unseemly actions of some of the revellers. It having been intimated that a soldier correspondent of a Pittsburg paper would write a glowing account of the afternoon's festivities, the reverend gentleman remarked with spirit: ‘If the affair is puffed in a Pittsburg paper, it will get puffed.’

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The otherwise sultry air of a Virginian August was at this place materially modified, both by the mountain breezes and the heavy thunderstorms characteristic of this region. What vivid flashes! what peals of thunder! what torrents of water streamed down the slopes, and wore gullies therein! How the trees groaned and cracked during the fury of the storm! Occasionally one would be demolished by a bolt, or another be stripped of a section of its bark, together with some of its limbs.

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One afternoon in the fourth week in August, the cavalry division of Gen. Gregg might have been seen moving north along the Sulphur Springs road toward Warrenton. This retirement of the cavalry was declared by the knowing ones who witnessed it to indicate an advance of our lines. We certainly did move on the following day, by way of Sulphur Springs, crossing the branch of the Rappahannock at that place, marching during that day across Hazel River and thence southwest to Stonehouse Mountain, at the north base of which we encamped. This lies northwest of Culpepper, C. H., and is a peak of that range to which we have so often alluded as extending east of the Blue Ridge, under different local names, through Virginia. This forward movement of the Army of the Potomac indicated the retirement of the main body of Lee's army, beyond the Rapidan. Our right was west of Culpepper, C. H.,