Journal of Surgeon Alfred L Castleman.

10th.—Returned to the main road this morning, followed it for a short distance, then, turned to the right, towards Frederick, by the way of Sugar Loaf Mountain. For two days we have been marching in full view of the Alleghany spurs, and to-night sleep within three miles of the foot of the Sugar Loaf. These mountains present a spectacle both grand and sublime, when viewed at a distance. ‘Tis worth a half a life of travel to see them. The men, to-day, have been forced beyond their power to endure, and very many of them have fallen out. Indeed, some regiments are reduced, to-night, to less than half the numbers with which they started in the morning. Rumors vague as vast, in reference to the strength of the enemy in Maryland, meet us to-day. They are variously estimated by those who have seen them, at from thirty thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand—a great margin, truly. We meet to-day, occasionally, our wounded cavalry men, coming in from successful skirmishing with the enemy’s outposts about Poolesville and Sugar Loaf; but they have fallen in with no large body of troops.

9th.—At midnight last night, we had but just got to rest, when we were called up to unload our wagons, taking out only such baggage as would be absolutely necessary on a forced march. The rest was sent back by teams. This lessening of transportation of leaving of packs, looks as if our leaders expected work to-day or to-morrow. I think we shall not have it so soon; but our leaders are at least on the alert. May this energetic stir be continued to a decisive result! Many think that we shall have no fight here at all, that the rebels have crossed in considerable numbers, with the view of drawing us away, but that their chief army is at Alexandria, ready to attack it so soon as we are enticed far enough away.

Six weeks ago we held almost the whole of Eastern Virginia; now, not a spot of it securely, unless it be a little piece around Alexandria. But with a continuance of the energy manifested for the last few days, we can soon retake it.

At present, the darkest shade cast upon the country is by our currency. These five cent shin-plasters I do not like, and I like less the false pretence under which they are issued. Why call them “postal currency?” What have they to do with “postal” affairs? ‘Tis time the government had quit cheating the people by disguising facts. If five cent issues are necessary, say so frankly, and make them, but let us have no more of this miserable deceit, with the more miserable looking rags.

We marched this morning through Darnestown, and there turning from the main road to the left, proceeded towards a ford in the Potomac, expecting to meet the enemy there and dispute his passage. Finding no enemy, we bivouaced for the night on Seneca Creek, a beautiful stream, at this point about two miles from the river, Crouch’s division lay in front of us. Much diarrhaea amongst the troops. In consequence of a scorbutic tendency in the whole army, the free indulgence in the green fruits found by the way side seems rather to alleviate than to increase the diarrhæa.

8th.—Marched again last night. Started at dark, and moved till about midnight. Were called before daylight this morning, started early, passed through Rockville. Stopped to rest for two or three hours, left knapsacks and baggage, and pushed forward. Verily, there may be mettle in General McClellan, after all. This is so different from our wont, that we appear to be under another dynasty. The army is elated. Let us hurrah for McClellan! But we must do it cautiously; we are not quite out of the woods.

Having lightened ourselves of our baggage, we moved on, our transportation wagons keeping up with us.

7h.—Having marched all night, I slept until awakened by the city bells, the first I had heard for nearly eight months. How forcibly I felt the application to the wilderness in which we had been, of Selkirk’s soliloquy:

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“The sound of the church-going bells
These valleys and rocks never heard,—
Never sighed at the sound of a knell,
Nor smiled when a Sabbath appeared.”

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It has been a beautiful Sunday, and we have been all day “lying around loose,” (no tents pitched) :awaiting orders.

Had it not been for this move, I should now have been packing up for home. We supposed that we were to remain idle in garrison this winter, and my Colonel promised that he would approve and aid me in getting the acceptance of my resignation. On appearing at his tent four days ago, with my resignation, I received orders for this march. I did not present it, and do not know now when I shall; but not on the eve of battle.

Yesterday, (I learn,) General McClellan was made Commander-in-Chief of the combined armies of Virginia and the Potomac. This looks very much as if there was some truth in the statements of his friends, that he had been held back and controlled in his movements by the President and General Halleck; very much, in fact, as if it were an acknowledgment that General McClellan had had but little voice in the management of the war, and that his superior officers were in the wrong. Should this prove true, I shall have much to atone for in the wrong I have done him in this journal. How gladly will I make all the amends in my power, should he only now prove to be the man for the occasion, and close up this war, as he has promised to do. This prompt and sudden move, too; this all night march in pursuit of the enemy, on the very first day of his accession to the command, gives additional ground for a belief in the hypothesis. God grant that it may be true, and that our General may by saving the country, retrieve his own waning popularity.

6th.—We cooked our rations yesterday, as ordered, but are being still to-day. I this afternoon rode down to Alexandria, (2 1-2 miles,) remained a short time, and when I returned at 4 o’clock P. M., found the army in line, ready to march. About dark, we started, no one seeming to know whither we were going, but at 10 o’clock at night, found ourselves on the south end of Long Bridge, opposite Washington. Having crossed the river, we marched with the pomp and boldness of a victorious army up to the house of the Commander-in-Chief, (General McClellan) and inflicted many long, loud cheers; and what an infliction it must have been! Just one year before, he had in a speech to the soldiers, promised them that if “you will stand by me, I’ll stand by you, and there shall be no more Bull Run defeats.” And here we are, on a skedaddle of a most shameful “Bull Run defeat,” celebrating the anniversary of the bomastic, yet puerile speech. We are eight miles farther from Richmond than when the promise was made, and worse still, Generals Lee and Jackson have pushed us aside at the Bull Run defeat, gone past us into Maryland, and threaten Baltimore and Harrisburg. Yet, amidst all my mortification, I have been unable to restrain a laugh at the ridiculousness of our position, as we pass through Washington. For weeks, we have, by night, been stealing away from the enemy in such trepidation that the breaking of a trampled stick would startle us, lest the noise might discover our position to the pursuers. Whilst crossing Long Bridge to-night, General Hancock ordered all the music to the front, and as we marched through the streets to the tune of “Hail to the Chief who in Triumph Advances,” I could not for the life of me, restrain a laugh at the thought of some poor old dung-hill cock, whipped till feathers were all plucked and ruffled, running away from his victorious antagonist, then perched on his own ground, and peeping from behind a bush to see that no little chanticleer was in hearing, would raise himself up and perpetrate his biggest “cock-a-doodle-doo.”

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“Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances.”

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Having crowed this big crow on the threshhold of General McClellan’s house, we passed on through Washington and Georgetown, and as no army was endangered by our delay, we have marched all night, stopping at daylight near Tennally Town, Maryland.

5th.—10 o’clock P. M. Have just received an order to cook three days’ rations, and be prepared to move at a moment’s notice. I do not know where we go, but presume into Maryland, to resist the advance of Lee and Jackson, who we hear are crossing at Harper’s Ferry and pushing towards Frederick, and perhaps towards Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. If they have crossed with their hundred thousand men, and we cannot now, with our large force, hem them in and capture them, we deserve to be beaten. Will General McClellan let us take them, if we can?

4th.—”All quiet on the Potomac.”

3rd.—Moved our camp this morning, to Fort Worth, about two miles from Alexandria, a beautiful locality, overlooking city and river; and here, report says, we go into garrison for the winter. I would much rather be in the field, and now that my regiment is not likely to be exposed to active danger, I think longingly of home.

Monday, Sept. 1st.—The defeat which we met with on Saturday, seems to have been a very decisive as well as a very destructive one. Our loss is heavy, though I am not without hopes that the official report will restore many of our lost men, and even place us in possession of the battle field. These official statements are powerful weapons, when well wielded.

We are under a flag of truce all day, removing the dead and wounded from the battle field. I have listened to more than a hundred funeral sermons to-day, each preached in a single second. A dozen muskets at a single volley, tell most impressively and laconically the last sad story, and the spirit of the departed soldier looks down with sad interest on the country which his body can no longer defend.

The enemy can be seen on the move, some eight miles away, and no doubt we shall soon be called to arms.

At 4 P. M. I went down to aid in the hospitals, worked for a short time, and was just prepared, with sleeves rolled up and knife in hand, to excise the shoulder of a poor fellow whose joint had been shattered, when a call to arms arrested further proceedings, and I returned to my regiment. Now, as I write, all is packed and ready, and we are ready to fight or run. The Lord knows which we shall be ordered to do, but presume we shall make another “strategic movement,” and “change our base of operations,” by falling back in the night on Washington. I was so severely reprimanded for saying that we were whipped at the battle of Mechanicsville and Gaines’ Mill, that I shall not venture to write that we are whipped now, but only think we are.

A tremendously heavy shower and hard wind set in about 5 o’clock, and continued till nearly dark, the men sitting in line and taking it as they best could. * * * At about 8 o’clock we took up our line of march towards Washington. The roads were terrible, the night very dark, yet it was a subject of frequent remark that, notwithstanding these embarrassments, we are led much faster from the enemy than towards him. After travelling about five miles, we found ourselves on the ground where a battle had been fought in the afternoon (Chantilly) between Gen. Stevens and the rebels who had got in our rear and were trying to cut off our retreat. The enemy was repulsed, but Gen. Stevens was killed, and his son wounded.

We marched through the rain during the night, and at 2 o’clock A. M. (when I dropped down and slept between my wet blankets for about three hours,) we had reached to within one and a half miles of Fairfax Court House. I now get no letters from home. This being deprived of regular mail matter from their homes, is one of the most cruel of all the impositions inflicted by government officials on the soldiers. If these office-holders could but know the deep interest with which the most illiterate soldier watches for the mails to hear something, anything from the dear home which he despairs of seeing again, it would move his heart, if he has one, not to throw out the soldiers mail to make room for the civilians.

12 o’clock.—More bad news. The dead body of General Philip Kearney has just been sent in by the enemy. He was killed yesterday, in the fight at Chantilly. This is a great loss. “He was the noblest Roman of them all.” If McClellan only possessed his dash, this war would not now be on our hands. Not an hour before his death, I saw him dashing along his lines, then quiet at Centreville, whilst his soldiers rent the air with shouts of gladness at the sight of him! How proud and happy he seemed at the huzzas of his “fighting division.” He little realized how short-lived the pleasure. He started for this place, (Fairfax,) fell in with the enemy, who had got in our rear, engaged and repulsed him, and lost his own life, and never fell a braver man or better fighter.

Our brigade is here, as on the Chickahominy, the rear guard of the army, to protect the rest from a pursuing foe. It seems strange that we should so long be exposed in this perilous position. After this defeat, I fear General Pope’s army will be demoralized. ‘Tis very sad to listen to the tales of bravery and destruction of his devoted troops at Bull Run, on Saturday. Again and again, whilst being borne down and pressed back by superior numbers, on being told that McClellan’s army was in sight and hurrying to their support, would they rally, cheer, and dash themselves against overpowering numbers, and struggle with almost superhuman effort, to hold the field till we could come up; and all this while we, the “Great Army of the Potomac,” were looking on, dallying with time, many, no doubt, praying for the very disaster which happened. Am I prejudiced that I think thus? Had I not written it in this journal, a week before it occurred, I might have hoped so.

10 P. M.—Again in the camp which we left to go to the rescue of General Pope. “Tis hard to write of what seems to me the infamous closing up of this short campaign; but it must be done. At 4 o’clock P. M., we left our camp, a mile below Fairfax, and before 10 o’clock, had accomplished a march which had occupied over a day and a half in our hurried march to save Pope’s army from destruction, our country from disgrace, our fellow-soldiers from slaughter! A day and a half towards the enemy, five hours to get back! There, it is written; it must tell its own story. I have no reflections to journalize. We are in camp, and the leading officers of our army are preparing for a good night’s rest. I do not think many of them will be disturbed by thinking of the groans of the wounded and dying whom they saw butchered, and reached forth no hand to save. God grant them sweet repose and clear consciences.