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of General Ewell's division continued their march, and passing through Culpeper
the First Maryland Regiment took the road leading in the direction of Madison
Court House, but the order to countermarch was received after the troops had
gone some miles, and that night the regiment bivouacked on the railroad three
miles below Culpeper. At length, hungry and wornout, after three days'
marching and countermarching, Ewell's division reached Gordonsville.

A halt of here of three or four days greatly refreshed the troops, and as a
move in some direction was momentarily expected their spirits revived, and
when at last it became known they were to join the army of the immortal
Stonewall Jackson in the valley of Virginia their enthusiasm knew no bounds.
Jackson was then at Swift Run, on the other side of the Blue Ridge, having
fallen back from Winchester after his fierce battle at Kernstown with the combined
forces of Banks and Shields.

The march was made by easy stages, and on the night of the 30th of April,
as the troops of Ewell's division came down the mountain side, and caught sight
of Jackson's camp-fires, they made the welkin ring with their cheers.

But next morning when the men went forth to welcome old comrades they
discovered to their surprise that Jackson with his command had quietly disap-
peared, and perhaps in Ewell's division no one knew whither he had gone, not
even General Ewell himself.