We marched all night, a hard, forced march over muddy roads, through the damp, close night. Soon after the start from our bivouac, a brigade of infantry had filed into the road ahead of us, and we could hear, behind us on the road, though we could not see for the darkness, the sound of other troops marching. The Brigade ahead of us, we soon found, to our gratification, to be Barksdale's Mississippi Brigade, now under command of General Humphreys, since the gallant Barksdale fell at the head of his storming columns at Gettysburg. This was the Brigade to which we had belonged in the earlier organization of the artillery. It was a magnificent body of men, one of the most thorough fighting corps in the army, as they had showed a hundred times, on the bloodiest fields, and were soon, and often to show again. There was a very strong mutual attachment between the First Richmond Howitzers and Barksdale's Brigade, and we were much pleased to be with them on this march. We mingled with them, as we sped rapidly along, and exchanged greetings, and our several experiences since we had been separated.
The morning of the 8th of May broke, foggy and lowering, and found us still moving swiftly along. The infantry halting for a rest, we passed on ahead, and for some time were marching by ourselves. I well recall the impressions of the scene around us on that early morning march. Our battery seemed all alone on a quiet country road. The birds were singing around us, and it seemed, to us, so sweet! Everybody was impressed by the music of those birds. As the old soldiers will remember, the note of a bird was a sound we rarely heard. The feathered songsters, no doubt, were frightened away, and it was often remarked, that we never saw birds in the neighborhood of camp. So we specially enjoyed the treat of hearing them, now and here, in their own quiet woods, where they had never been disturbed. All was quiet and still and peaceful as any rural scene could be. It seemed to us wondrous sweet and beautiful! All the men were strangely impressed by it. They talked of it to one another. It made our hearts soft, it brought to the mind of many of those weary, war-worn soldiers, other quiet rural scenes, where lay their homes and dear ones, and to which this scene made their hearts go back, in tender memory, and loving imagination. All the eyes did not stay dry as we passed along that road. We talked of this scene many a time long afterwards. And I expect some of the old "Howitzers" still remember that quiet Spottsylvania country road, winding through the woods, on that early Sunday morning, when the birds sang to us, as we hurried on to battle.