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

[267] time was not come for rest, and indeed, the movement upon which the Second Corps had entered was to be the most arduous in its history.

Pushing northward to the support of Gregg, and marching all night, Fayetteville was reached about 6 o'clock in the morning and the troops were told to get their breakfast.

‘The halt made the evening before,’ says General Warren in his official report, ‘but little more than sufficed for the establishment of the sentinels, preparation of meals, etc., so that sleep had scarcely closed the eyes of one of the command since they awoke on the morning of the 12th.’

‘After only three quarters of an hour, however, the order to ‘Fall In’ was heard, and the tired men, who had scarcely been allowed to prepare coffee, were again summoned to the route. The day's march was long and wearisome; the distance was not great, but such were the delays and interruptions, due to the presence of the Third Corps on the road in front, and the necessity of guarding continually against attacks on our left flank, that it was not until 9 o'clock in the evening that the corps bivouacked on the south side of Cedar Run, not far from the little village of Auburn. Thus ended the 13th of October.’

The fourteenth day of October was a memorable one in the history of the Nineteenth regiment, as well as of the whole corps. Before four o'clock in the morning, the corps started, as rear guard of the retreating army and crossed Cedar Run in a heavy fog at Auburn, which is described by Stewart's biographer as ‘a little hamlet consisting of the residence of Stephen McCormick, a post office and a blacksmith's shop.’ Ewell was closely pressing the rear and left of the corps as it made the crossing, and Job Stewart, who had been caught the day before between two corps of the army and had remained hidden in a thick pine wood during the night, opened with artillery on the larger part of the first division which was massed on a hill back of Auburn; the remainder, Brook's brigade, being thrown out to the front, covered the route to Greenwich, from which direction the rebels were making a heavy pressure, while Carroll's brigade was helping Gregg's cavalry hold them back on the southerly side of the run, in the direction of Warrenton.