150 Norta Carottna Troops, 1861-’65.

dle, which would seem to boast, “I am going to do something.
IT am.”

BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN.

Learning of the advance of this column, we broke ¢amp at
Gordonsville and marched to meet it, determined that
Pope should see our faces when we met. We en-
countered our friend and commissary, Banks, at Cedar
Mountain, where we were so persistent in present-
ing our faces to view that this part of Pope’s army
soon presented us a brief view of their backs and disappeared.
In this battle I obtained the finest view of an en-
gagement I ever had. Cedar Mountain is an isolated knob
with a broad, open country all around it. From this elevated
position we could plainly see the two lines approach, and
when they opened fire and engaged in deadly strife, how my
heart ached for the result as I looked upon this living pano-
rama of war, with the greatest possible anxiety for the suc-
eess of our men. As long as they stood and fired at each
other the result was in great doubt; but when our men raised
the “Rebel Yell,” and swept down among them in an old-
fashioned Confederate charge, that settled it. The Federals
were swept from the field and driven off in confusion, and
Banks was made to honor another requisition from Jackson
on his commissary department. :

It having been definitely ascertained that the army of Me-
Clellan was being withdrawn from the Peninsula and sent to
Pope, General Lee began to transfer his army to the fields of
Northern Virginia again. Jackson began one of his favorite
movements to turn Pope’s flank and get into his rear. To do
this, we had to make a detour of sixty or seventy miles, sweep-
ing around close to the foot of the Blue Ridge so as to turn
his right flank. The march was a forced and vigorous one,
80 as to execute the movement before Pope could be apprised
of our purpose. While marching up a river and about a
mile from it, a regiment of the enemy crossed over,
threw out a line of sharpshooters and began to reconnoiter
our columns. . They supposed, no doubt, that it was Mosby
with his little battalion of bush-whackers, hanging on their

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Twenty-First REGIMENT. 151

flanks and annoying them, as was his custom, and they would
run him off before he could do them any mischief. They
struck our column at our brigade. We quickly faced into
line and charged them, running them back to the river, into
which they plunged precipitately as they came to it. We
rushed down to the bank and found the river full of Federals,
struggling to reach the other bank, where many were climbing
up out of the river. We paid no attention to those in the
water, it being such a fair and tempting shot at those climb-
ing the other bank. We were rolling them back in the river
at a fearful rate when we were ordered to join the column
and resume the march. We resumed our march and
pressed forward with all the speed we could make. So rap-
idly did we move from place to place, always turning up at
a place entirely unexpected by the enemy, that we were
known as “Jackson’s Foot Cavalry.” In fact, we could on
long marches outmarch the cavalry during the latter part of
the war. They could ride off from us for the first few days,
but their horses being thin, would soon become jaded and we
would overtake them and march on by them in a week’s time.

We made a complete success of turning Pope’s flank and
marched around into his rear. We struck the railroad at a
place called Brandy Station, distant only three or four miles
from Manassas Junction, at about 11 o’clock at night. We
had been there but a few minutes when we heard the whistle
of a train in the direction of Pope’s army, and discovered it
was coming toward us. We tried to tear up a rail from the
track but did not succeed before the train came thundering
by. We fired a volley into it as it sped towards Manassas
Junction. Soon we heard another whistle coming from the
same direction. This time we succeeded in getting some
rails up and turned them so as to cause the engine to jump
the track down a steep embankment. We then moved up the
road a short distance, and as it came by we fired a volley into
it. The engineer pulled the throttle wide open and gave his
engine all the steam. When it struck the turned rails, it
jumped clear out from the rails and buried itself in the earth
at the foot of the embankment. The cars tumbled into piles,
leaving not more than half the train standing on the track.