Camp near Warrenton Junction, May 1st, 1864.
The Ninth Corps has relieved the Fifth Corps, which has been guarding the railroad between Alexandria and Culpepper, and which now goes to the front. We are scattered—one regiment in a place— all the way from Centerville to Warrenton. Our work is an important one.
All of Meade’s supplies are dependant on our vigilance and energy. The Rebels, too are alive to its importance, and are making desperate efforts to cut off his supplies. Yesterday the Eighth Michigan were sent out six miles to look after a band of guerillas that attacked a train. I cannot say that I am pleased with this arrangement.
Come to be once more on the move, the same feeling of restlessness, the same desire to do, has taken possession of me. I would “forward to Richmond” and continue to go forward, until the rebellion is crushed and I could return, in peace, to my loved home. The road from Alexandria to this place was of deep interest to me. The whole country has been baptized in the “martyr blood of freedom.” Now, indeed, it is “sacred soil.” We passed directly through the old Bull Run battlefield. Much as I had read of it, and often as I had heard it described by men who were in the fight, I find I had received very erroneous impressions. I had fancied the Rebel position to have been almost impregnable. On the contrary, one can hardly conceive a fairer battle ground. Their advantage lay in our ignorance of the country and of the strength of the force opposed to us, and, more than all else, a lack of generalship on the Union side.
