Late in the fall the enemy in our front grew restless; and Generals Johnston and Beauregard thought it expedient to withdraw from Munson’s and Mason’s, and concentrate the whole army on the heights of Centreville, as everything indicated an advance of the immense army assembled around Washington. Therefore leaving at Munson’s a small party, with an old stove pipe mounted on cart wheels, to annoy the Federal advance, we took a last look into the streets of Alexandria, and at the detested Federal Capitol, and marched to our new quarters at Centreville. It was with regret we left our old camp at Fairfax Station, around which lingered so many pleasant associations of the past; and our last reveille seemed to make sad the hearts of all; and the summons to fall in was not as promptly responded to as on former occasions. Never again were the hearty, joyous shouts of the Maryland boys to be heard through its now deserted streets, nor the heavy tramp and the sharp command, as the battalion performed, to astonished, gaping thousands, those intricate evolutions inimitable. No, nor the unhappy sentinel to be frightened to death by the fearful shriek of “Indians got you! Indians got you!” when it turned out only to be our good Colonel making his _periodical_ grand rounds. And never more was the gallant Elzey to display his superb horsemanship to the fair daughters of Baltimore on a visit to the camp, but which performance, much to their disappointment and regret, was brought to an abrupt termination by the breaking of a stirrup strap. No, never, never! all is past and gone forever! Even the old guard house and the Colonel’s pen, that had ever and for so long extended to the refractory ones a hearty welcome and tender, affectionate embrace, were bid a sad, sad farewell. Centreville, when we reached it, presented a scene of bustle and confusion. Troops were arriving in large numbers, and were striving to reach the grounds selected for the respective regiments and brigades all over the same road. At last, tired and hungry, the brigade of Elzey halted upon the very summit of one of the highest hills around the place. The sight that presented itself from this point that night was one of the grandest I ever witnessed. Before us, as far as the eye could reach, flashed thousands upon thousands of camp fires; and spell-bound we gazed upon this grand pyrotechnic display for hours. And then the next day, and for days after, the evolutions of forty thousand troops of all arms in the plain below us, was a scene indescribably grand. CHAPTER V.