George H. Gordon, From Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain

[154] store during the campaigns that followed in the valley, I leave to the imagination to conceive. At about forty minutes after two I received a note from my assistant adjutant-general, whom I had sent forward to communicate with Colonel Dunning, that that officer, with four regiments, two batteries, and one squadron, was about two and a half or three miles in advance; that he was ordered to proceed to New Market that night, and would like to have me keep within one mile of him.

Although Dunning's brigade went ahead, it was largely in the rear; his men began to drop out shortly after leaving Mount Jackson; and from there to New Market they were scattered along the road singly and in twenties. They dropped down anywhere, and at once were fast asleep. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there were one thousand stragglers on that march of eleven or twelve miles; there was a complete chain of them. To be sure the road was of the worst description; it was a succession of clayey sloughs with deep mud alternating with rocky hills. There were creeks to be forded, in which the water came up to the men's knees; so that shoes, originally bad, were rendered so useless by alternate drying and soaking, that many of our own men marched along on that weary day of oppressive heat in their stocking-feet. The prospect of a fight was exciting; we listened eagerly for sounds from the few left in Dunning's brigade. Still we plodded on until dark; every one was completely exhausted. I had been in the saddle from 4 A. M. until 9 P. M. We were within two miles of New Market, and well in rear of Rude's Hill and all other threatening positions, when the column halted, and the men fell asleep as soon as they touched the ground. In the morning we learned that Shields had the night before passed through the town, and gone four miles beyond it; that Jackson had made no