After the enemy had disappeared from our sight, and the battery had gone into park, I borrowed Sergeant Dick Payne's horse to ride to the creek, over which the enemy had retreated, for a canteen of water. When within a few steps of the branch, I passed two artillerymen from another battery on foot, who were on the same errand, but none of us armed. We saw a Yankee infantryman a short distance off, hurrying along with gun on shoulder. We called to him to surrender, and, as I rode to get his gun, another one following came in sight. When I confronted him and ordered him to throw down his gun, he promptly obeyed. The gun, a brand-new one, was loaded, showing a bright cap under the hammer. The man was a German, and tried hard, in broken English, to explain, either how he had fallen behind, or to apologize for coming to fight us--I could not tell which. We now had full and undisturbed possession of Manassas Junction and of the long trains of captured cars, through the doors and openings of which could be seen the United States army supplies of all kinds and of the best quality. On a flat car there stood two new pieces of artillery made of a bronze-colored metal, and of a different style from any we had yet seen. In our last battle, that of Slaughter's Mountain, we had noticed, for the first time, a singular noise made by some of the shells fired at us, and quite like the shrill note of a tree-frog on a big scale. Since then we had sometimes speculated as to what new engine of war we had to contend with. Here it was, and known as the three-inch rifled gun, a most accurate shooter, and later on much used by both Federals and Confederates. In view of the fact that almost all of the field artillery used by the Confederates was manufactured in the North, a supply for both armies seemed to have been wisely provided in the number they turned out. Here we spent the remainder of the day, but not being allowed to plunder the cars did not have the satisfaction of replacing our worn-out garments with the new ones in sight. We were very willing to don the blue uniforms, but General Jackson thought otherwise. What we got to eat was also disappointing, and not of a kind to invigorate, consisting, as it did, of hard-tack, pickled oysters, and canned stuff generally.