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Updated: June 5, 2025
This report, which I had not read probably since its date till now, recalls to me vividly the whole scene of the affair at Blackburn's Ford, when for the first time in my life I saw cannonballs strike men and crash through the trees and saplings above and around us, and realized the always sickening confusion as one approaches a fight from the rear; then the night-march from Centreville, on the Warrenton road, standing for hours wondering what was meant; the deployment along the edge of the field that sloped down to Bull-Run, and waiting for Hunter's approach on the other aide from the direction of Sudley Springs, away off to our right; the terrible scare of a poor negro who was caught between our lines; the crossing of Bull Run, and the fear lest we should be fired on by our own men; the killing of Lieutenant-Colonel Haggerty, which occurred in plain sight; and the first scenes of a field strewed with dead men and horses.
Cut off the wire and rail communication of a South African veld town and you have isolation in the most thorough sense. In such a place at such a time mere statement may seem quite possibly the truth. Towards evening we got news of the rebels, and a night-march was ordered.
But we must detail the circumstances as they occurred. To do this, then, let us mention that, after a weary night-march of many miles over a mountainous road covered with snow, the th regiment, with several others, found itself within cannon-shot of one of the enemy's positions.
To hasten Morton's decision, the night-wind, as it swept along, brought from a distance the sullen sound of a kettle-drum, which, seeming to approach nearer, intimated that a body of horse were upon their march towards them. "It must be Claverhouse, with the rest of his regiment. What can have occasioned this night-march?
Having there finished our last mouthful of food, we remounted, and following the plain eastward, prepared for a long night-march. As the light of day waned we passed on the right hand a table-formed hill, apparently a detached fragment of the sub-Ghauts or coast range.
It was calculated that they lost one half of their army on that disastrous night-march. 'From Covenanters with uplifted hands, From Remonstrators with associate bands, Good Lord, deliver us! Royalist Rhyme, KIRKTON, p. 127.
These are truly moments in a man's life to remember; and I shall ever look back to that solemn night-march over the desert, which my pen fails to describe, with sentiments of pleasurable awe.
It was late October, and although the days were still very hot and oppressive, the nights were almost bitterly cold. A night-march is always a disagreeable business. The head of the column checks and halts, and those in the rear have no idea whether it is an involuntary stop for a few minutes, or whether they are to halt for an hour or more, owing to some complication of orders.
During those long months, the King's fortunes have had constant and increasing success, a success always greatest when Rupert has been nearest. And now this night-march is made to avenge a late attack, of unaccustomed audacity, from Essex, and to redeem the threat of Rupert to pass in one night through the whole country held by the enemy, and beat up the most distant quarters of the Roundheads.
No sooner had Montrose heard this than, clambering the Grampian barrier between Badenoch and Athole, he brought his followers, by one tremendous night-march of twenty-four miles, over rocks and snow, down into the region in peril. Argyle's soldiering, it had been ascertained, was not the best part of him.
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