During the afternoon of the 4th the regiment marched with the division about four miles on the main road to Williamsburg and bivouacked for the night. By dark rain began to fall and continued throughout the night and the day following. The early morning of the 5th found us on the march again. The rain had thoroughly soaked the light clay soil and the preceding ammunition trains and batteries had worked the soft clay roads into deep ruts and numerous mud holes. To take to the fields and roadsides did not better much the marching, the unsodded fields being little better than quagmires, in which the men floundered to the knees. All the forenoon there was now and then cannonading to our front with occasional rattle of musketry, indicative of skirmishing, but by two or three o'clock there came the long swelling roar of infantry firing, giving evidence that our advance had overtaken the enemy and they were making a stubborn stand. The atmospheric conditions were such that from these sounds the battle appeared to be but a mile or two in our advance, and at every turn of the way we expected to see the blue line of smoke and snuff the odors of burning powder, while in fact the engagement was five or six miles distant. Reaching a point about two miles from the battlefield the regiment was ordered to unsling knapsacks, doff blankets and overcoats and march at quick step to the front. As we neared the field, panting from our exertion, we passed a brass band standing by the roadside. General Heintzelman, observing them as he passed, exclaimed in that nasal twang so familiar to all: "Play, boys, play! Play Hail Columbia! Play Yankee Doodle! Play anything! Play like h--l!" It is needless to add that the band promptly obeyed and the strains of the national quickstep put a new spring in our weary limbs, revived our flagging spirits and with a rousing cheer we pressed forward. Arriving on the field the regiment was deployed in line of battle in the woods to the right of the road, but darkness was settling over the field, the firing soon ceased and we were not engaged. The night following was extremely disagreeable. The rain continued to fall, and drenched to the skin we lay on our arms all night without fire, blankets or rations. By morning the lowering clouds were gone, and so also were the Johnnies, leaving their dead unburied and their wounded to our tender care. Many private houses of the ancient town, all of the churches and that venerable seat of learning, from whose halls came many of the nation's most eminent statesmen and patriots, William and Mary College, were turned into hospitals, where friend and foe were gathered from the field of conflict, housed, and cared for by our surgeons and nurses with undiscriminating attention.