Friday, April 15th.
The Second Battalion, under Major Arthur, composed of Companies D, K, H, and E, took up its line of march for the Fifth Corps this morning, passing through a pleasant, open country stretching away from the foot of “Pony Mountain,” and after a march of about six or eight miles reached its destination near the village of Culpepper. Here, in an old orchard near a large but dilapidated brick house about a mile from Culpepper, we located our camp. While pitching tents I was surprised and delighted to see Capt. Jim McNair, of the 8th N. Y. Cavalry, an old Geneseo school-mate and friend of mine, who had heard of our expected arrival in these parts and had ridden over to meet us. Leaving the company in charge of Lieut. Edmonston, I mounted the horse of Jim’s orderly and rode with him over to Culpepper on a foraging expedition, which, however, was not a very marked success, for we found the town almost wholly deserted by the inhabitants; the fences and buildings destroyed or badly damaged, and the streets full of army wagons and straggling soldiers. Gen. Grant, and Gen. Warren of our Corps, have established their Headquarters here, though there are but three or four houses in the town which are not riddled with shot and shell or have windows and doors left in them. The churches are being utilized as hospitals, and the little urchins on the street are as bitter as the few older inhabitants who remain, and assure us as we pass along that “when the Rebs come back you-uns will skedaddle.”
After an exceedingly plain and frugal repast at a miserable apology for a restaurant, and a short stroll about town, we returned to camp, where, parting with Jim, I found my shelter tent temporarily pitched for my reception. I find we are in the midst of a country where stirring scenes have taken place, some even as late as during the past winter. Just in rear of us, on a plain running back to a dense wood, and in the wood itself, occurred a severe cavalry fight, and the place where our camp now stands was crossed and re-crossed by the combatants and the earth stained with the blood of brave men, while the old orchard trees are cut and scarred by the bullets. The old brick house near us is occupied in part by an elderly lady and her granddaughter of the close-communion “Secesh” persuasion, and in part by the Brigade Commissary, whose stores consist principally of hard tack and whiskey. One can scarcely conceive of a more utterly forsaken looking habitation than this residence of one of the “F. F. V.’s.” The barns, stables, sheds and fences which formerly belonged to or surrounded it, have been torn down piecemeal to supply fuel or to build shanties for soldiers. Not a green thing, not even grass, is allowed to grow about, and the old shell itself is literally tottering to decay. The doors, what few remain, swing loosely on leather hinges; the windows, demolished by patriotic Yankee valor, admit at once the sunshine and the storm, while the rickety old veranda that once graced the front on either side, now serves as a roost for three or four sickly chickens (all the tenant’s visible earthly possessions), and a loafing place for a few idle army officers. I mean to take an early opportunity, however, to pay my respects to the ladies.
