About seven o'clock we came to a Federal wagon which had upset over a bank and was lying, bottom upward, in a ditch below the road. Around it were boxes and packages of food, desiccated vegetables red with tomatoes and yellow with pumpkin. Here a timely halt was called. Across the ditch, near where we went into park, the infantry who had preceded us had carried from the overturned wagon a barrel of molasses with the head knocked out. Surging around it was a swarm of men with canteens, tin cups, and frying-pans--anything that would hold molasses. As each vessel was filled by a dip into the barrel it was held aloft, to prevent its being knocked from the owner's grasp as he made his way out through the struggling mass; and woe be to him that was hatless! as the stream that trickled from above, over head and clothes, left him in a sorry plight.
CIRCUITOUS NIGHT MARCH--FIRST DAY OF SECOND MANASSAS--ARRIVAL OF LONGSTREET'S CORPS
Here we halted long enough for a hurried breakfast for men and horses. Sleep did not seem to enter into Jackson's calculations, or time was regarded as too precious to be allowed for it. We were on the move again by noon and approaching the scene of the battle of July, 1861. This was on Thursday, August 26, 1862, and a battle was evidently to open at any moment. In the absence of Henry, our gunner, who was sick and off duty, I was appointed to fill his place. And it was one of the few occasions, most probably the only one during the war, that I felt the slightest real desire to exclaim, with the Corporal at Waterloo, "Let the battle begin!" About two P. M. we went into position, but, before firing a shot, suddenly moved off, and, marching almost in a semi-circle, came up in the rear of the infantry, who were now hotly engaged. This was the beginning of the second battle of Manassas, during the first two days of which, and the day preceding, Jackson's command was in great suspense, and, with a wide-awake and active foe, would have been in great jeopardy. He was entirely in the rear of the Federal army, with only his own corps, while Longstreet had not yet passed through Thoroughfare Gap, a narrow defile miles away. The rapid and steady roll of the musketry, however, indicated that there was no lack of confidence on the part of his men, though the line of battle had changed front and was now facing in the opposite direction from the one held a few hours before. Moving through a body of woods toward the firing-line we soon began meeting and passing the stream of wounded men making their way to the rear. And here our attention was again called to a singular and unaccountable fact, which was noticed and remarked repeatedly throughout the war. It was that in one battle the large majority of the less serious wounds received were in the same portion of the body. In this case, fully three-fourths of the men we met were wounded in the left hand; in another battle the same proportion were wounded in the right hand; while in another the head was the attractive mark for flying bullets, and so on. I venture the assertion that every old soldier whose attention is called to it will verify the statement.