Waitt, Ernest Linden, History of the Nineteenth regiment, Massachusetts volunteer infantry , 1861-1865

The last part of this day's march of 26 miles was extremely hard. The mud was ankle deep and the men were completely drenched and exhausted. The Springs were reached at nine o'clock and because everything was so wet it was found to be almost impossible to make fires. The men, therefore, were obliged to content themselves with an unusually light supper and lay down upon the wet ground, under wet blankets. There was little sleep for them that night,—it was too wet and chilly. During the night the rain ceased and the morning of the 26th was fair. The march was then resumed toward Maryland, and at two o'clock in the afternoon the regiment reached Edward's Ferry, in sight of Ball's Bluff where the regiment had received its baptism of blood.

Something was not ready and the men rested wearily on the bank until after nightfall, while Adams, Thompson, Donath and Ferris, Rice, Palmer and ‘Charlie’ Rowe lent voice and wit in speech and song to while away the leaden hours. No one who was there will forget ‘The Kentucky Lawyer’ as they heard it that night from the lips of Rowe, with the various editions of his own teeming brain.

In the darkness, the regiment crossed the Potomac on pontoon bridges and went into camp. To the surprise of everyone, the command found itself on the very piece of ground on which its tents had been pitched at Camp Benton when it first went into the service in 1861. What memories it brought to all, and above all the recollection of many a face present when they first were there, but now gone—a sacrifice to the cause. The old camping ground was now a fine wheat field, nearly all traces of its former occupancy having been removed.

As the regiment passed the house of Mr. Williams who had lived near the old camp and on whose ground it was, he was seen leaning over the fence. Many called him by name and he expressed his astonishment at meeting the Nineteenth Massachusetts again, and shook hands with as many as the time and the constant march would permit.