Along down the mountain sides, through gorges and over hills, the army slowly made its way.  No haste, no confusion.  The enemy’s cavalry harassed over rear, but did little more.  Meade had had too severe a lesson to hover dangerously close on the heels of Lee, not knowing what moment the wily Confederate Chieftain might turn and strike him a blow he would not be able to receive.  The rain fell in torrents, night and day.  The roads were soon greatly cut up, which in a measure was to Lee’s advantage, preventing the enemy from following him too closely, it being almost impossible to follow with his artillery and wagons after our trains had passed.  We passed through Fairfield and Hagerstown and on to Williamsport.  Near Funkstown we had some excitement by being called upon to help some of Stuart’s Cavalry, who were being hard pressed at Antietam Creek.

After remaining in line of battle for several hours, on a rocky hillside, near the crossing of a sluggish stream, and our pickets exchanging a few shots with those of the enemy, we continued our march.  On the night of the 6th and day of the 7th our army took up a line of battle in a kind of semi-circle, from Williamsport to Falling Waters.  The Potomac was too much swollen from the continuous rains to ford, and the enemy having destroyed the bridge at Falling Waters we were compelled to entrench ourselves and defend our numerous trains of wagons and artillery until a bridge could be built.  In the enclosure of several miles the whole of Lee’s army, with the exception of some of his cavalry, were packed.  Here Lee must have been in the most critical condition of the war, outside of Appomattox.  Behind him was the raging Potomac, with a continual down-pour of rain, in front was the entire Federal army.  There were but few heights from which to plant our batteries, and had the enemy pressed sufficiently near to have reached our vast camp with shells, our whole trains of ordnance would have been at his mercy.  We had no bread stuff of consequence in the wagons, and only few beef cattle in the enclosure.  For two days our bread supply had been cut off.  Now had such conditions continued for several days longer, and a regular siege set in, Lee would have had to fight his way out.  Lumber was difficult to obtain, so some houses were demolished, and such planks as could be used in the construction of boats were utilized, and a pontoon bridge was soon under way.

In this dilemma and strait an accident in the way of a “wind fall” (or I might more appropriately say, “bread fall”) came to our regiment’s relief.  Jim George, a rather eccentric and “short-witted fellow,” of Company C, while plundering around in some old out-buildings in our rear, conceived the idea to investigate a straw stack, or an old house filled with straw.  After burrowing for some time away down in the tightly packed straw, his comrades heard his voice as he faintly called that he had struck “ile.”  Bounding out from beneath the