About 3 A. M., on the 19th, I received an order to return to San Augustine with the engineer company and its train. In making our way from the head of Worth's division, along the main road, towards the rear, it was somewhat difficult to arouse the men of that division, who were sleeping on the road, and get them to clear the way for the passage of our wagons. No explanation of the order for our return had been given. Just after the dawn of day, and before we were clear of the division, two soldiers on the side of the road, were lighting a fire for the purpose of preparing coffee. As we passed them, one said to the other: "We are not going to fight to-day: Twiggs's division is going to fight". The other of the two replied, sneeringly: "What do you know about it?" To which the first answered: "Don't you see those young engineer officers, with the engineer company and their wagons? They are going back, to be sent on another road with Twiggs's division, we are not going to fight to-day". As we passed out of hearing of the two soldiers I said to McClellan, who was riding by my side: "Did you hear that?" He answered "Yes and I consider it the handsomest compliment that could be paid to the engineer company. The private soldiers of this army understand that we are sent where the hardest work and hardest fighting are to be done--and always at the head of the leading division". We reached San Augustine a little after sunrise, August 19. I will now quote direct from my official report of these operations. "Orders were [at once] received, from the headquarters of the army, directing me to report to Captain R. E. Lee, of the Corps of Engineers, with the company under my command, and [I] was ordered by Captain Lee to take ten of my men, and select certain tools from the general engineer train, in addition to those carried along with the company. I turned over the command of the engineer company to Lieutenant McClellan, who, under the direction of Captain Lee, proceeded at once to commence the work on the road from San Augustine to Contreras." "In about one hour and a half, I rejoined the command with the necessary implements for [a large working force in] opening the road. Captain Lee directed me to retain the men I then had with me, and to take charge of a certain section of the road, to bring forward my wagons as rapidly as possible, and to see that the road was practicable before I passed any portion of it. At this time my company was divided into five sections, each under an engineer officer directing operations on [different portions of] the road".