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.

[27] steel. Early in February, our left section, the two howitzers and their cannoneers, the gunners, sergeants, and chief, had the honor of forming a portion of a reconnoitring party that made an early expedition to Annandale; and on the 10th of March the army was in motion. At this moment, its disposition and composition was as follows: Hooker's division on the extreme left, twenty-two miles below Washington on the east side of the Potomac; Heintzelman's division on the Mt. Vernon road below Alexandria; Sumner's and Franklin's on the right of Heintzelman, near Fairfax Seminary; McDowell's and Keyes's on the right of Franklin; then Porter's, and on his right, McCall's. East of the Blue Ridge there were no Federal troops in Virginia to the west of McCall; but on the Maryland side, in the vicinity of Edward's Ferry, was the division of Gen. Stone. At Harper's Ferry was Gen. Banks, and on his right, the division lately commanded by Lander. The evening of the 10th of March, 862, found our division at Fairfax, C. H., bivouacking east of the village. The advance meanwhile had reached Manassas Junction, to find it evacuated by the Confederates, who, under Gen. Joseph E. Johnson, had retired behind the Rapidan. We tarried three days, we believe, at Fairfax. The army headquarters, we remember, during most of this time, were in a large mansion north of the village.

Then there was a return of our division along the line of march to the border of Alexandria County. It was now that the army corps were organized: Gens. Heintzelman, McDowell, Keyes, Sumner, and Banks,—each commanding one which included the division that had been previously in his charge. Thus, Gen. McDowell was assigned to the First Corps, consisting of his old division, now commanded by Gen. King, and of the divisions of McCall and Franklin. So we became a part of the First Army Corps, which, now that it had been determined to advance upon Richmond by the way of the peninsula between the York and the James, was supposed to be destined to cover the national capital, advance to the Rappahannock and Rapidan, and perhaps in time reach and join McClellan's force, which would then be operating south of the Pamunkey.

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On the night of the 5th of April, Franklin's division, then of the First Corps, was in the huts on Centreville Heights; the baked