My entrance into the city contrasted strikingly with that of soldiers I had read of after a series of victories in battle. The portable forge belonging to our battery needed some repairs, which could be made at a foundry in Richmond, and, as no other conveyance was available, I took passage on it. So I entered the city, the first I had ever visited, after dark, seated on a blacksmith-shop drawn by four mules. Not having received my eleven dollars a month for a long time, I could not pay a hotel-bill, so I climbed the fence into a wagon-yard, retired to bed in a horse-cart, and slept soundly till daylight. That morning I took breakfast with my cousin, Robert Barton, of the First Virginia Cavalry, at his boarding-house. After which, having gotten a sick furlough, he hurried to take the train, to go to his home, and left me feeling very forlorn. Thinking that I could fare no worse in camp than I would in the midst of the painful surroundings of a hospital, I returned in the afternoon to the battery. The arduous service undergone during the past three weeks, or rather three months, had left the men greatly depleted in health and vigor. Many were seriously sick, and those still on duty were more or less run-down. CHAPTER XI FROM RICHMOND TO GORDONSVILLE--BATTLE OF CEDAR RUN--DEATH OF GENERAL WINDER--DESERTERS SHOT--CROSS THE RAPPAHANNOCK At the conclusion of this sojourn in camp, Jackson's command again took the march and toiled along the line of the Central Railroad toward Gordonsville. I, being sick, was given transportation by rail in a freight-car with a mixture of troops. A week was spent in Louisa County, in the celebrated Green Spring neighborhood, where we fared well. My old mess, numbering seventeen when I joined it, had by this time been greatly reduced. My brother John had gotten a discharge from the army, his office of commissioner of chancery exempting him. Gregory, Frank Preston and Stuart had been left in Winchester in the enemy's lines severely wounded. Singleton had been captured at Port Republic, and others were off on sick-leave. My bedfellow, Walter Packard, had contracted fever in the Chickahominy swamps, from which he soon after died. He had been left at the house of a friend in Hanover County, attended by his brother. In his delirium he impatiently rehearsed the names of his companions, calling the roll of the company over and over. From Green Spring we marched to the neighborhood of Gordonsville, where we remained in camp until about the fifth or sixth of August.