I had a pair of guns of
the same kind and calibre in my mixed battery, and these with my
other field artillery were put in the other forts. Lines of infantry
trench connected the works and extended right and left, and my four
regiments occupied these. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt.
i. pp. 777, 779; vol. xix. pt. ii. p. 176.] A regiment of cavalry
(Eighth Illinois, joined later by the Eighth Pennsylvania) was
ordered to report to me, and this, with Schambeck's squadron which
had come with me, made a cavalry camp in front of Falls Church and
picketed and patrolled the front. [Footnote: See my order assigning
garrisons to the forts. Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 771.]
We pitched our headquarters tents on Upton's Hill, just in rear of
Fort Ramsey, and had a sense of luxury in "setting our house in
order" after the uncomfortable experience of our long journey from
West Virginia. The hurry of startling events in the past few days
made our late campaign in the mountains seem as far away in time as
it was in space. We were now in the very centre of excitement, and
had become a very small part of a great army. The isolation and the
separate responsibility of the past few months seemed like another
existence indefinitely far away.
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