This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[53]
which were rendered necessary by the change in the line before mentioned; and it was engaged in building new winter quarters south of Bull Run, and completing the earthworks covering McLean's Ford when the line of Bull Run was abandoned.
About two weeks before the evacuation took place, division commanders were confidentially informed of the probability of that event, and ordered to prepare their commands for it in a quiet way. Up to that time there had been no apparent preparation for such a movement, but an immense amount of stores of all kinds and private baggage of officers and men had been permitted to accumulate.
Preparations, however, were commenced at once for sending the stores and baggage to the rear.
Owing to the fact that our army had remained stationary so long, and the inexperience in campaigning of our troops, there had been a vast accumulation of private baggage by both officers and men; and when it became necessary to change a camp it was the work of two or three days. I had endeavored to inculcate proper ideas on this subject into the minds of the officers of my own immediate command, but with very indifferent success, and it was very provoking to see with what tenacity young lieutenants held on to baggage enough to answer all their purposes at a fashionable watering place in time of peace.
After the confidential instructions for the evacuation were given, I tried to persuade all my officers to send all their baggage not capable of being easily transported and for which they did not have immediate necessary use, on the railroad to some place in the rear out of all danger, but the most that I could accomplish was to get them to send it to Manassas Junction.
This was generally the case with the whole army, and the consequence was that a vast amount of trunks and other private baggage was accumulated at the Junction at the last moment, for which it was impossible to find any transportation.
This evil, however, was finally and
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.