Issues,
except of ammunition, were made at night in all cases. By this system
the hauling of forage for the supply train was almost wholly dispensed
with. They consumed theirs at the depots.
I left Culpeper Court House after all the troops had been put in motion,
and passing rapidly to the front, crossed the Rapidan in advance of
Sedgwick's corps; and established headquarters for the afternoon and
night in a deserted house near the river.
Orders had been given, long before this movement began, to cut down the
baggage of officers and men to the lowest point possible.
Notwithstanding this I saw scattered along the road from Culpeper to
Germania Ford wagon-loads of new blankets and overcoats, thrown away by
the troops to lighten their knapsacks; an improvidence I had never
witnessed before.
Lee, while his pickets and signal corps must have discovered at a very
early hour on the morning of the 4th of May, that the Army of the
Potomac was moving, evidently did not learn until about one o'clock in
the afternoon by what route we would confront his army. This I judge
from the fact that at 1.
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