September 23 — General Kershaw’s division of infantry arrived here to-day, from the Shenandoah Valley; I think it is en route for General Lee’s army at Petersburg.
Three Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery — George Michael Neese.
September 19 — This morning some Yankee raiders burnt a bridge on the Rapidan — a railroad bridge, I think.
The occurrence caused considerable excitement here at Gordonsville and gave rise to various wildcat rumors flying around thick and fast, that the Yankees were advancing on the town with a heavy force. The employees at home, and the lame, halt and almost blind from the hospitals all turned out to defend the town. It was a motley crew, some few of whom had guns, but most of the men were without arms of any kind, yet they looked as if they were nearly ready to die in the last ditch. My captain sent me word to defend the town at all hazards. When I received his dispatch I moved one of our guns about four hundred yards east of the town to a position that commands the road that leads toward the Rapidan, and I was ready for fight. But happily, after the raiders destroyed the bridge, they disappeared in some other direction and the battle of Gordonsville was postponed to a more convenient season.
September 15 — Our guns are parked at Gordonsville, and to-day I was detailed with a squad of six men to guard the parked guns, which duty we are performing this evening near the depot at Gordonsville.
September 7 — To-day we moved camp to Madison Mills on the north side of the Rapidan. There are no Yanks at present in this whole section of country, and we are browsing around recruiting our horses, and recuperating them for the fall campaign.
September 6 — In this camp we are spending some of our happiest soldier days. The weather is pleasant and the foraging is superfine; the cornfields are in first-class order and are giving the richest kind of milk just now.
Every few nights our singing club goes to some farmhouse or village cottage, to while away the gliding hours with mirth and song in mutual, voluntary, and pleasant exchange for milk and pie. Truly war can ever furnish a checkered pathway for mortal man to tread, its vicissitudinous winding course inevitably lying through the exciting scenes of the battle-field, where its bloody track is oft times thickly strewn with the dead and dying, and where many a stalwart castle of hope lies stilled in death, buried in the ruins and wreck of the fray. Then again, if fortune smiles and the storm of battle is successfully weathered, the pathway of duty often still leads to distant fields where space has to be annihilated by forced and weary marches, that may end in a successful raid or a ruinous rout. And when the spasmodic waves of war have rolled too wildly and high, and dashed themselves into harmless spray so that they have to sink back to the sleeping billow to gain and gather new strength, then the dull and heavy routine of camp life drags and creeps slowly by and the watch fires of contentment and happiness often burn low. But, with all the discomforts, privations, ennui, and onerous sameness of camp life, the fatiguing march, and the dismal horrors of the battle-field, the cloud of discouragement and despondency can never dip so low as to blot out every ray of cheering pleasure that now and then rifts the war cloud and peeps through the blackness and smiles and glows and shines with charming splendor, even between the wrinkles on war’s grim front; for to-day we are sojourning in pleasure’s cheering light, and to-morrow we may be on the way to the field of war’s dread alarms.
Last night we were out on a serenade, and as the sentimental words,
..
“When in thy dreaming,
Moons like these shall shine again,
And daylight beaming,
Prove thy dreams are vain,
Wilt thou not relenting,
For thy absent lover sigh,
In thy heart consenting,
To a prayer gone by,”
..
floated away on the wings of song through the shimmering moonlight, the soft stilly breathing of their inspiration evoluted a chorus of milk and pie garnished with the smiles and charms of pretty, youthful maidens. Pleasurable amenities like these, fitted in with the duties of the field, make sunny spots that sparkle and glow in the mosaic patchwork that is spread along the soldier’s ever-changing pathway, and their sweet light will tinge with roseate hue the distant skies that bend over the gateway of the future.
August 24 — The weather has been wet and rainy for the last week. To-day we moved to a land of better and greener pastures. We are now camped about a mile west of Barboursville, on the Standardsville road.
August 18 — We moved camp to-day, two miles from Gordonsville on the Charlottesville road.
August 17 — Our guns came up on the train to-day.
August 16 — We renewed our march this morning, and about middle of the day we arrived at Gordonsville. We are camped this evening one mile west of Gordonsville.
August 15 — We were on the march all day. Camped to-night at Louisa Court House. We have been in the hot sultry lowlands for several months, where we did not get a glimpse of even a pretty hill, consequently to-day, when we first sighted the grand, cool-looking mountain peaks pictured against the western sky, the company gave three cheers for the Blue Ridge.
