"Not every boo is a bear" was clearly shown on this march towards Centreville when Fred, brother of Sergeant L. of "K," having permission from the colonel, undertook to secure a chicken for the sergeant whose stomach was not in accord with his regular rations. With instructions to be extremely careful, the soldier went from house to house but without success, the guards at these places telling him that he was running great risks, since the men, seen in the distance, were clearly bushwhackers. It was nightfall before he found the chicken he was after, and by the time he was making his way back, darkness settled down. He had to pass through a strip of woods where every object was distorted and even a deaf man would have heard sounds. Halfway through the woods, a real noise in the roadside bushes made his hair begin to rise, but he did not stop to investigate too closely, when the climax was reached by six or seven razorback hogs dashing across the road in front of him. The sudden change from probable guerrillas to actual swine was a relief unutterable, but the former were about and that very night carried off two men from the headquarter's wagon train. While the sergeant enjoyed his chicken broth and improved thereon, he declared the risk too great and Fred went on no more such errands.
It was a four o'clock call of the bugle, in the morning of the 14th, that summoned frost covered and sleepy soldiers from dreams to realities, but their distress was somewhat offset by the appearance of rations, of which they drew supplies for four days and thereby were better equipped for the day's progress which began at seven o'clock, as one veracious chronicler states, with the First Corps on the left and the Sixth at the right of the railroad. While these two Army Corps were thus continuing their way in relative quiet, heavy firing in the rear indicated that the Second and Fifth Corps were having something to do, the Second fighting the battle of Bristoe Station; General Warren having his hands full in warding off the attack of the enemy while the cavalry, on both sides, were piling up the portentous list of battles, many of them bloodless, which adorn the histories of so many mounted regiments. Centreville, so famous in the July days of 1861, was now the evident destination of the forces and crossing Bull Run, at Blackburn's Ford, the scene of the first day's fight in the memorable First Bull Run engagement, the brigade arrived at Centreville not far from noon. To build fires and to prepare a dinner, undisturbed, was the next act in this day's drama and, if tired soldiers caught a few hours sleep before the next scene, it need not be wondered at. Some of the men in the Thirty-ninth were participants in the disastrous battle of Bull Run; to them it was a case of old scenes revisited, and if they took some pride in rehearsing their experiences they did not fail of interested listeners.