April 30 — This morning at daylight we started out on picket. We went within ten miles of Harrisonburg, but saw no sign of Yankee game. We returned to camp a little after midday, then moved up the river two miles and camped. Some of the sentinels that were guarding at the bridge which crosses the Shenandoah at Conrad’s Store, had their guns set up, leaning carelessly against the side of the bridge, and when we crossed this morning the jar from the artillery threw them down, one of which was discharged when it fell, wounding three of the guards.
Jackson’s whole army is on the march up the river. Heaven only knows where he is bound for now. I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of his men have no more idea of where they will turn up next than the buttons on their coats.
From here where we are camped this evening we can see the old camp that Jackson left to-day, and there are hundreds of camp-fires blazing there, which at first seemed a little puzzling, as Jackson has certainly gone up the river, and the camp-fires that I see right now are surely not spectral. But here comes a very satisfactory solution. Somebody whispers that General Ewell’s division crossed the Blue Ridge to-day from east Virginia, and his men are camped in the very same camp that Jackson’s men vacated this morning. Just a little piece of pure strategy fresh from under the little faded cap.
