Following the road up the mountain, we came across one of our guns which, by bad driving, had fallen over an embankment some forty feet. Two horses still hitched to it lay on their backs, one of which I recognized as Gregory's one-eyed dun which I had ridden foraging at Bridgewater. After my arrival on top of the mountain I was sent with a detail which recovered the gun and the two horses, both alive. Dandridge and Adams were driving the team when the gun went over. They saved themselves by jumping, and came near having a fight right there as to who was at fault, and for a long time afterward it was only necessary to refer to the matter to have a repetition of the quarrel.
After a day or two we countermarched toward Port Republic and went into camp a mile from Weir's cave, where we spent several days. Thence toward Staunton and camped near the town. Here we were told that we were to have a month's rest in consideration of our long-continued marching and fighting. Rest, indeed! We lost the three days we might have had for rest while there, preparing our camp for a month of ease. During our stay here my father paid us a visit, having ridden from Lexington to see his three sons. After having gotten ourselves comfortable, orders came to pack up and be ready to move. I had carried in my knapsack a pair of lady's shoes captured from Banks's plunder at Winchester. These I gave to a camp scavenger who came from the town for plunder.
Little did we dream of the marching and fighting that were in store for us. Jackson, having vanquished three armies in the Valley, was now ordered to Richmond with his "bloody brigades."
We left Staunton about the twentieth of June, crossed the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap, passed through Charlottesville, and were choked, day after day, by the red dust of the Piedmont region. In Louisa County we had rain and mud to contend with, thence through the low, flat lands of Hanover, bearing to the left after passing Ashland.
Our destination was now evident. The army around Richmond was waiting for Jackson to dislodge McClellan from the Chickahominy swamps, and our attack was to be made on his right flank. It seems that our powers of endurance had been over-estimated or the distance miscalculated, as the initiatory battle at Mechanicsville was fought by A. P. Hill without Jackson's aid. This was the first of the seven days' fighting around Richmond. We arrived in the neighborhood of Cold Harbor about two P. M. on June 27, and approached more and more nearly the preliminary cannonading, most of which was done by the enemy's guns. About three o'clock the musketry began, and soon thereafter the infantry of our brigade was halted in the road alongside of us, and, loading their guns, moved forward.