It was at the close of a warm spring day that we landed there; the sun was just sinking in the west as the boat rounded-to at the wharf.  We jumped ashore, and for the first time in our lives inhaled the ’sacred atmosphere’ of the so-called Southern Confederacy.  All was bustle and confusion; but we soon had our traps, i.e., guns, caissons and horses, unloaded, and a little after dark were on the march.  We proceeded a few miles out of town, and at midnight halted, pitched our tents, stationed guards, and all who were so fortunate as not to be detailed for duty were soon sound asleep.

At Grafton, one hundred miles east of Parkersburgh, we were told there was a party of some two thousand rebels.  This then was the object of our visit to Western Virginia, to drive these men east of the mountains,—­from whence most of them came,—­and to protect the honor of our flag in that portion of Virginia now known by the name of Kanawha.

At sunrise on the 30th, we marched to the depot of the north-western branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and, after a hard half-day’s work in loading our guns, horses and wagons, stowed ourselves away in cattle cars, and were once more ready for a start.  As we rattled along over the railroad, the scenery for the first few miles was beautiful, and we began to think that Old Virginny was really the flower of the Union.  But a ‘change soon came over the spirit of our dreams.’

After passing a small shanty, called Petroleum,—­from the numerous oil-wells in the vicinity,—­we met with the first really hard work we had seen since we began the life of a soldier.  Here the rebels had burnt one of the railroad bridges, and all hands had to ‘fall in’ and repair damages.  Never did men work with a better will.  Slender youths, who, if they had been told one month before, that on the 30th day of May, 1861, they would be laying rails and cutting timber for Uncle Sam, for eleven dollars a month, would have pitied their informant as insane, were here working with a will that showed what a man can do if he only sets himself about it.  For two days and a night we toiled and ceased not, and when, on the evening of the second day, we passed over the ‘soldiers’ bridge’ in safety, such a shout rent the air as I never heard before.

A few miles beyond the burnt bridge, the scenery began to change.  In the clear starlight, instead of beautiful streams and fine farms, we beheld hills and mountains covered with an almost impenetrable growth of underbrush, and large rocks hanging over our heads, ready to be hurled down upon us by some unseen hand, and to crush our little handful of men.  On we went, at a snail’s pace, till about ten o’clock, P.M., when our joy was again turned to woe, for here too the dogs of Jeff Davis had been doing their work, and had burnt another bridge.  We waited until morning, and then, after some hard swearing, were once more transformed into ‘greasy mechanics,’ and before the sun went down had passed to the ‘other side of Jordan’ in safety.