As soon as I was well again, I returned to the army, which was still at Centreville, where it remained for some time.
While in camp here, Governor Letcher visited the army and presented each Virginia Regiment with a new State flag. The troops were all drawn up around one of the forts, the colonels going up into the fort, the Governor making a speech to each as he presented the flags, and the colonels, on receiving them, replying. I remember Col. Eppa Hunton, of the Eighth Virginia, said in his speech, "Every man in Fauquier County shall be carried home feet foremost before his flag will be surrendered." I think this was the summer or fall before or during our first encampment at Centreville.
FALL BACK FROM CENTREVILLE—THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN—YORKTOWN LINE EVACUATED—THE BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG—"GIVE IT TO THEM"—INTO A HOT FIRE—COLONEL GARLAND WOUNDED—INCIDENTS OF THE BATTLE—GARLAND AND KEMPER PROMOTED
Gen. Joseph E. Johnston had been for some time sole commander of the army, General Beauregard having been ordered south some months before. Gen. George B. McClellan, who succeeded General McDowell, was in command of the Yankee army, and had been all winter recruiting, reorganizing, equipping and drilling what he claimed to be "the finest army on the planet," some 125,000 strong. When winter began to break, General Johnston knew his adversary would soon move against him, and thinking it not prudent to stand his ground at Centreville or Manassas, against so powerful an army, with only about 40,000 men, just as McClellan was preparing to advance, the Confederate army, on the 9th of March, 1862, broke camp, having first made dummy cannons of wood, painted black, mounting them in the forts and redoubts around Centreville, also dummy soldiers, in order to deceive and delay the enemy. The army retired leisurely at first, stopping several days at a time in camp.
The terms of enlistment of most of the Confederate troops were about to expire, and the men were called upon to reenlist for the war, which nearly all did. On this march, while in camp a few days, Company C elected officers to take the place of those who had been at first elected and whose terms would expire about the 1st of May. Captain Clement was reëlected captain, I was elected first lieutenant, James Connelly was reëlected second lieutenant, and Jabez R. Rosser was elected third lieutenant. J. A. Hobson and H. H. Withers, first and second lieutenants, not being reëlected, left the company at the end of their terms. About this time the company received a number of recruits, the militiamen up to thirty-five years old having been called out and given the privilege of joining the companies of their choice. The recruits were mostly married men, from twenty-five to thirty-five years old.