At the first sound of the reveille next morning, every man sprang nimbly to his feet. They wanted to see Jackson, to talk with his troops over the great battle they had so recently fought, and more than all, to discuss the prospects before us, and, if possible, ascertain our destination; but, to our utter amazement, when we turned our faces to where we had passed his army the evening previous, nothing met our gaze but the smouldering embers of his deserted camp-fires. We rubbed our eyes and looked again and again, loth to believe our sense of vision. But gone he was, and whither and for what no one could tell. Quietly, in the dead of night, he had arisen from his blanket, and calling his troops around him, with them had disappeared. For more than two weeks his whereabouts remained a mystery, and various were the conjectures as to what had become of him, when one day there came the news of Milroy’s defeat at McDowell, more than one hundred miles away. Swiftly he had traversed the steep ranges of mountains that separated him from his prey, and with irresistible fury had hurled his legions upon the astonished foe in his mountain fastness and routed him with heavy loss, and was even now on his return, and within two days’ march of us. General Ewell was ordered to join him at once near Luray, and on the 16th of May we encamped at Columbia Bridge on our way thither. It was the next day that the term of enlistment of Company C, First Maryland, expired, and the men clamored for an immediate discharge, which, under the circumstances, was reluctantly given by Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, who had succeeded to the command by the promotion of Colonel Steuart to the rank of brigadier general, and ordered to organize the Maryland Line. And here again the discontent that had prevailed at Manassas among the men enlisted for the war broke out afresh. They declared they had enlisted for twelve months only, and that if the muster rolls had it otherwise they had been grossly deceived by their officers. The dissatisfaction grew more apparent every hour, and when, on the 18th day of May, we marched to join General Jackson, the men were almost in a state of mutiny. It was on the banks of the Shenandoah, the 21st of May, that we first caught sight of the glorious soldier as he dashed along the lines with hat off, and bowing right and left in acknowledgment of the vociferous cheers that went up from his enthusiastic army.