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

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[463] exchange was declared, and the prisoners who had been twelve or eighteen months in Salisbury and Andersonville arrived, I saw sights which made me feel as if I had no right to say that I had ever been a prisoner at all.

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Extracts from a Diary of a visit to old camps and Battlefields in 1888 by John D. Billings.

Boydton Plank Road.

With the morning's dawn I settled my bill at Hotel Gary in Petersburg and at 8 o'clock took seat in an open carriage and set out on a day's campaign. A pair of high-stepping grays took me along at a lively pace to the Boydton Plank Road and down that historic thoroughfare we proceeded. I had instructed the driver not to tell me when we arrived at Burgess' Mill, wishing to test the accuracy of my recollection. But when he drew up at Burgess' barn and asked me if this was the place I had to give it up. Yet here we were at Burgess' Tavern, wrongly so called, sure enough and I had just crossed Hatcher's Run. On this very ground stood the lines of the Second Corps Oct. 27, 1864. Had I approached the spot from the Union side I think I should have recognized it. Here is the White Oak Road which enters the Plank Road from the west. Burgess' old house was torn down by the Rebels after we left on that October day, and a heavy line of works was built across the road connecting with a strong fort a few rods away on either side. The old barn into which Lieut. Smith was carried wounded was destroyed at the same time and a new one stands in its place.