At about 2 P.M. on the 8th of August, the long roll was beaten in the camp of the Second Massachusetts, at Little Washington. As has often happened, we fell in only to fall out again with the news that it only meant get ready to march; and in fact it was nearly five before we were off. The heat during the first hour or two of the march was severe, but the latter part was by moonlight and very pleasant. Still, I find it recorded that some unfortunate and unseasoned recruits, who had just joined us from home with knapsacks heavy with five times what they really needed, were utterly played out before the sun was down. And here I take up the narration as I find it in the little book referred to, with an occasional interpolation and explanation which will be marked as such in brackets. _August 14, 1862._--One week to-day since the fight. Let us attempt a _resume_. On arriving at Culpeper, Friday night, after a moonlight march which about played out the unfortunate recruits with their heavy knapsacks, we lay down in a field, Stephen and I cracking my provision box, which had come on with the blankets. [This was Lieutenant Stephen Perkins of Company A with whom I had become intimate, and who shared with me a great and innocent passion for tea. Whichever of us was known to possess a supply of the article was sure of a visit from the other at his camp fire after a march. Before separating that night, I remember he said to me, "Sam, we shall see more fighting soon: I feel it; there is a battle in the air." There was, indeed, and it ended the battle of life for him.] We then slept on the moor, to the sound of freshly arriving troops and wagons. In the morning, we find an army around us. After a breakfast at the sound of the triangle [for by this unmilitary instrument did Johnson, our caterer, call the officers' mess to meals], under the sun, we fall in and take arms, but have hardly done so when we stack them again and proceed to stake out ground for a camp. But this is just done and tents beginning to rise when Sherman, of Pope's staff, rushes by to head-quarters at a rate which "spared not for spoiling of his steed," and which caused us to hold our hands in expectation for a moment; and, sure enough, in two minutes we were again in line, and this time off under a blazing sun, though for once without our knapsacks. Through Culpeper and about six or seven miles further in a fiery furnace hotter even than that of Shadrach & Co. Near the front, heard a little firing. Sergeant Parsons fell with sun-stroke. Left two recruits with him and pushed on for the right, where at last, panting and half dead, we got into a wood where we stacked arms and fell down behind them. The half hour of breeze and shade which ensued made men of us once more, so that when my company was ordered to skirmish we were actually able to do it. The firing of artillery commenced at about 3 P.M., as I should judge, pretty heavy and well-sustained.