The service on the Peninsula was arduous and disagreeable; in the muddy trenches, or back in the woods, lying on the rain-soaked ground, or marching along the cut-up and muddy roads, was trying indeed, and caused no little sickness among the troops. Harvey Bailey, of Company C, died of disease while here. One night while the regiment lay back in the woods, the men sleeping on their arms, that is, every man lying with his gun by his side, instead of being stacked, there was a night alarm, with sharp musketry firing along the trenches; all were aroused and under arms in a moment. It was a cloudy, pitch-dark night, and we did not know what the trouble was. Just as the firing ceased the hooting of a big owl was heard in the distance. "There now," was whispered along the lines, "we are cut off; that is a Yankee signal." Nothing came of it, however, except a good scare. When soldiers are thus suddenly aroused at night by a call to arms, it causes a chilling sensation, and they shake like one with the "buck ague."
General Johnston was often seen riding along the lines, sitting his horse very erect, and presenting a soldierly appearance. He always reminded me of a gamecock trimmed and gaffed ready for the main. While here our first year of enlistment expired, and I entered upon the duties of first lieutenant; I had been orderly sergeant up to this time, carrying a musket.
General Johnston, getting information that McClellan was preparing to send a force by transports up York River to West Point, and which he, Johnston, had no means of preventing, and thus get in his rear and between him and Richmond, it was determined to evacuate the Yorktown line of defense. Accordingly, about the 3d or 4th of May, 1862, the trenches were evacuated and the whole army began falling back up the Peninsula, the wagons and artillery in front. The Yankees made a landing at West Point, but were driven back to their transports by a force sent to meet them. As we marched up the Peninsula we could hear the booming of the big guns in this fight.
The roads were in wretched condition, muddy and badly cut up by the long trains of wagons and artillery, making the march very trying and disagreeable, for it rained nearly every day about this time. No one who has not marched on foot behind army wagon and artillery trains has any conception of what muddy roads are. Horses and mules were sometimes literally buried in the mud and left to perish, or shot dead on the spot.