A NEW ENVIRONMENT
much pleasanter for the sentinels on both sides of the river.
With the Army of the Cumberland
After two days of this picket duty we were relieved by a Connecticut regiment and rejoined our Corps. We found that we were under orders to march the next day to Brandy Station, on the railroad. We did not know it at the time, but we were about to take our leave from the old Army of the Potomac, with which we had been associated since its organization. We had fought side by side in some of the hardest battles in the war; and had we been consulted in the matter, we would doubtless have voted to stay where we were, and help it to finish Lee's army. However, we were not consulted, and the necessities of war now called us to the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga.
On the night of the 24th, we bivouacked at Brandy Station, where the paymaster worked all night paying off the troops, and where we saw the Eleventh Corps being loaded for Alexandria. The next morning we marched to Bealeton Sta-
[97]
