April, Friday 11, 1862

         Salem - - Paris

Morning: Eight o'clock line formation. We are in the rear guard.

An axe we found at our arrival in the last house, is being returned there. It is the house of a John A. Denis whose sister and mother etc. still live there. Denis was taken prisoner by the Mounted Rifles on 2/12 by Anandale.

By chance, members of Company  A-45th Mounted Rifles had lodged in the same house and last gotten prisoners by that affair.

Nine-thirty o'clock: Marching off.

We are getting deeper into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Roads tolerable, here and there interrupted by freshets.

Piedmont Station.

Beautifully situated on the slope of a mountain and brook.

A party of slaves in flight report here. George for the staff, another George for Captain Hoefer.

After a short rest we start marching again. We arrive at a mill where shortly before, the Enemy had supposedly destroyed a large amount of flour. Colored Miller. Three soldiers take over and do the work, they catch up with us after several hours. During our march on the road we meet up with a Negro boy fourteen years of age who wants to come with us. I take him. His name is Arthur Jackson. His open lively nature is liked by all.

We pass other groups of slaves. However they do not venture to come with us. Arthur hides in the wagon train. Link exchanges his cap for Arthur's hat.

Arrival in Upperville. Small friendly village in mountain basin.

After a long wait, at sundown we start marching again until we are close by Paris. Ten-thirty o'clock we arrive before a hill and spend the night in open air. Paris a sort of village, charmingly situated in the valley.

Arthur has four brothers and two sisters younger than himself by his mother and his (step) father of eight years, sold to the South. Former property of a "John Javis" by ...... who shortly before in a fanning machine badly injured his arm.

During our rest in the morning a Negro family arrives, Father, Mother, Daughter about sixteen years of age, Son about twelve years of age, slaves from Gibson. They want to be free. They arrived in their Sunday best, clean and of respectable nature. "We belong to an owner but we cannot stand it anymore." Aside from tham, more arrive fifteen in all. One has frightened the slaves with the lie, that the North wants to sell them to Cuba, in order to cover the cost of war.