Page:A narrative of service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry.djvu/33

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FOLLOWING JACKSON

successes knew no bounds, and our impatience to be on the move could scarcely be restrained.

On the trail of Stonewall Jackson

At length the long-wished-for came. On the morning of February 25, 1862, we bade adieu to the barracks that had sheltered us so long, and boarding the cars moved to Sandy Hook, where we went into camp on the ground that we had left six months before. During the night there arrived a train of cars with a pontoon bridge, in charge of a detachment of United States engineers; and General McClellan came from Washington by special train, personally to supervise the movement. Our Regiment being largely composed of lumber men and raftsmen from northern Wisconsin, who were accustomed to running rafts on the rivers of our State, readily made up a detail of a hundred experienced fellows to assist the engineers in laying the bridge. By noon it was constructed, 1300 feet long, in a swift current and our Regiment, the advance of the army, was on its way into Dixie.

We moved rapidly on to Bolivar Heights without seeing anything of the enemy, and halted there

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