West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1904-09-15
THE THIRD BATTLE
or Bull Run and Company G. OF
kingwOOd.

lined up at their Annoy in King
wood at six O'Clock and moved
over the hill to the depot in heavy
marching order, loaded with
haversack containing gum
blanket, mess pan, knife, fork,
spoon, tin cup and several other
things, then a canteen swung TO the
other side and blanket and shelter.
tent rolled on the left shoulder and
a krag gun on the right with bayo
net on the left side and a heavy belt
for 100 rounds of cartridges, max.
ing in all good load to march
under. The large tents, blue uni.
forms cooking outfit, commiSsary
stuff aud other baggage generally
was hauled over and shipped in the
baggage car. The Company was
only one man short of the number
ordered out SIS men and three off
GERS. AT Tunnelton, we transferr-
ed to special troop train contain.
ing two Companies from Parker
burg and K from Clarksburg, II
from Fairmont and l. from Nor
gantown, the first two from the
Second Regiment and the other
four from the First Regiment. We
were running as second section of
No. and about two hours behind
1t, so that the special made about
fifty miles an hour till it arrived at
Harpers Ferry, where it was derail-
ed and came very nearly being
wrecked and dumped into the Po-
tomac River.
The train had slowed up and was
running slowly through the town
and across the bridge there over
Potomac when the fangs on big
engine wheel broke off throwing
the engine from the track. 1t
bumped along on the cross ties
getting just to the edge, when the
engineer succeeded in stopping the
train. Had he been running as
fast as he had before entering the
town the whole train would have
gone fifty feet into the river. Or
had the wheel broken anywhere
while making fifty miles an hour
it would have wrecked the train.
This delayed us couple of hours,
till a wrecking train came up from
Brunswick and got the engine out
of the way and another engine
from Brunswick took us on our
way, but they ran slower after that
and arrived in Washington city about
O'Clock. They ran us clear around
the city to get us on the Southern
Railway for Manassas and such
slow time on account of the large
number of troop trains IN the way
that it was 10 o'clock at night be.
fore we arrived at Camp No. 2, a
mile past Thoroughfare and fifteen
miles from Manassas the county
seat of Prince William County.
Camp No. I under Gen. Fred Grant
commanding the Blues was located
around Manassas and Camp No
the Browns, was located around
Thoroughfare and under command
of Gen. Franklin J. Bell of Ken
lucky, and therefore a born fighter.
Our Captain had gotten left at
Martinsburg as we'll as about
dozen other officers, although It
was not their fault, as the War De-
partment had arranged to serve
coffee there to all the soldiers and
had not notified the train men and
they pulled out while the officers
were settling for the coffee and our
Company was about the only one
that got coffee, Sergeant c. w.
Wolfe our Quartermaster being an
old hand at the business hustled off
soon as the train stopped and hur-
ried back with about six gallons of
good hot coffee and the train pulled
out before he could return the two
big buckets and so we we're two
good buckets ahead but out
Captain.
We finally got into camp tired
and hungry and as it was too late
and too dark to put up our tents and
besides we could not find out lust
where our Company street would
be located so we put up the little
shelter tents and eat sorse bareback
and canned beef and rolled up in
our blankets for the night. Next
morning we we're up at daybreak
and had the small tents down and
rolled up out Of the way and ready
to locate our big tents and serve
breakfast but it was some time be
fore we could find out just what to
do, as the orders we're 90 put up no
tents TIL some officers from the
Regulars came around and directed
just how and where 90 do il. This
they finally did, having everything
measured with a tape line and 10.