There never was a corps better organized than was the quartermaster’s corps with the Army of the Potomac in 1864.  With a wagon-train that would have extended from the Rapidan to Richmond, stretched along in single file and separated as the teams necessarily would be when moving, we could still carry only three days’ forage and about ten to twelve days’ rations, besides a supply of ammunition.  To overcome all difficulties, the chief quartermaster, General Rufus Ingalls, had marked on each wagon the corps badge with the division color and the number of the brigade.  At a glance, the particular brigade to which any wagon belonged could be told.  The wagons were also marked to note the contents:  if ammunition, whether for artillery or infantry; if forage, whether grain or hay; if rations, whether, bread, pork, beans, rice, sugar, coffee or whatever it might be.  Empty wagons were never allowed to follow the army or stay in camp.  As soon as a wagon was empty it would return to the base of supply for a load of precisely the same article that had been taken from it.  Empty trains were obliged to leave the road free for loaded ones.  Arriving near the army they would be parked in fields nearest to the brigades they belonged to.  Issues, except of ammunition, were made at night in all cases.  By this system the hauling of forage for the supply train was almost wholly dispensed with.  They consumed theirs at the depots.

I left Culpeper Court House after all the troops had been put in motion, and passing rapidly to the front, crossed the Rapidan in advance of Sedgwick’s corps; and established headquarters for the afternoon and night in a deserted house near the river.

Orders had been given, long before this movement began, to cut down the baggage of officers and men to the lowest point possible.  Notwithstanding this I saw scattered along the road from Culpeper to Germania Ford wagon-loads of new blankets and overcoats, thrown away by the troops to lighten their knapsacks; an improvidence I had never witnessed before.

Lee, while his pickets and signal corps must have discovered at a very early hour on the morning of the 4th of May, that the Army of the Potomac was moving, evidently did not learn until about one o’clock in the afternoon by what route we would confront his army.  This I judge from the fact that at 1.15 P.M., an hour and a quarter after Warren had reached Old Wilderness Tavern, our officers took off rebel signals which, when translated, were seen to be an order to his troops to occupy their intrenchments at Mine Run.

Here at night dispatches were received announcing that Sherman, Butler and Crook had moved according to programme.

On discovering the advance of the Army of the Potomac, Lee ordered Hill, Ewell and Longstreet, each commanding corps, to move to the right to attack us, Hill on the Orange Plank Road, Longstreet to follow on the same road.  Longstreet was at this time—­middle of the afternoon—­at Gordonsville, twenty or more miles away.  Ewell was ordered by the Orange Pike.  He was near by and arrived some four miles east of Mine Run before bivouacking for the night.