John D. Billings, The history of the Tenth Massachusetts battery of light artillery in the war of the rebellion

[189] 6th, orders came to pack up, and the next morning we hitched in, momentarily expecting to depart, but on what errand we then knew not. It seems that Gen. Butler, believing Richmond had been stripped of its garrison to strengthen Pickett's force in North Carolina, planned a cavalry expedition against it up the Peninsula under Gen. Wistar, while as a diversion in his favor Gen. Sedgwick, then temporarily in command of the army, threw across the Rapidan two divisions of cavalry and two of the Second Corps to occupy the attention of Lee's army. As a precautionary measure for the safety of the troops thus thrown forward, we were ordered to be in readiness. It is scarcely necessary to add that the expedition came to naught; having found its way blocked at Bottom's Bridge, the troops returned to their starting-point, their fortune almost identical with that of the British troops sent to Salem a hundred years before, who, as Trumbull puts it,—

. . . . without loss of time or men,
Veer'd round for Boston back again,
And found so well their projects thrive,
That every soul got home alive.

But the Army of the Potomac suffered a useless sacrifice of two hundred and fifty lives.

Wednesday, March 16, a corps review was had by Gen. French, accompanied by Gen. Sedgwick, near the residence of that uncompromising loyalist John Minor Botts. The gentleman himself came out to see the parade, and, while waiting for ‘Headquarters’ to arrive, several of us engaged him in interesting conversation. He related to us some of his experiences when taken to Castle Thunder early in the war, and described the battles that had taken place on his farm. He was one of the few men in the Old Dominion whom neither argument nor intimidation