General Rosecrans had commenced to invade Virginia via Charleston, and we received orders to meet his advance. On September 25, 1861, we took up our line of march for Big Sewell Mountain, some one hundred miles distant, and we made good mileage considering the downpour of rain we passed through. We reached Big Sewell Mountain September 30, and could plainly see the tents of General Rosecrans’s army. On the night of October 3 we received orders to have our guns cleaned and in shape for the following morning; so we were up at half past three on the morning of October 4, and were ready to meet the enemy, as our information was that they were to attack us in the early morning; but we were disappointed. Upon looking over where the tents were the previous evening, we saw nothing of them. General Rosecrans had fallen back in the direction of Charleston. We started after him, but the road was in such a bad condition that we had to return to our camp in an old field on Big Sewell Mountain. We moved off the mountain October 11, and remained near by till October 22; we were then ordered to Huntersville, Va., where we remained till November 19, when we moved our camp on the Monterey road. As the weather was getting quite cold, it was decided to build winter quarters, and each mess vied with the others as to which could build the best cabin. But there were to be no winter quarters for us. Before the quarters were all completed we received orders to join General Stonewall Jackson at Winchester, Va., about two hundred and seventy-five miles distant; so on December 11 we took up our march at 10 A.M., and we moved to Gatewood, ten miles distant. We passed Warm Springs on the morning of the 13th, and on to Harrisonburg in a few days, and we were in the beautiful Shenandoah. On this march we had reveille before daylight, and soon after sunup we had eaten our breakfast, put a couple of biscuits in our haversack for dinner, and we would get into camp before sundown and soon have our supper. The First Tennessee Regiment had a splendid band, and as we marched through the beautiful towns of Bridgewater, Newmarket, etc., we would line up, get in step, and have “music by the band”; and the ladies would come out of the residences, lean on the front gates, and cheer us on our way. We reached the quaint old German town of Strasburg on Christmas Day; and if there was any whisky or eggnog left in that town, I did not know it. Between Strasburg and Winchester we saw many locomotives being hauled along the turnpike. General Jackson had captured them from the Baltimore and Ohio Railway at Martinsville. On December 26 we went into camp near Winchester on the Romney road. CHAPTER II. CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL STONEWALL JACKSON.