Nov. 10, 1862

Excerpts from the letters of 2nd Lt. Henry P. Goddard:

Nov. 5, 1862

Heavy picket firing this morning. Burnside is in advance of our regiment. Blenker and his Dutchmen on our left. Our Army is on the south side of the Blue Ridge, Lee's on the north. We are securing gap after gap to prevent their getting on our flank. Our plan of campaign appears excellent and the "Johnies" will have to fight or fall back on Richmond. Gen. Couch now commands our corps. You can find Upperville on any map of Virginia. If they won't fight us here it would look as if we must catch and fight them at Port Royal on the Manassas RR, but it looks as if there muct be a fight for this gap variously known as Paris, Upperville or Ashby's Gap.

Nov. 7

We are pushing towards the Manassas Gap RR only three-fifths of a mile away.

Nov. 8

… marched through Rectortown, Va., crossing the Manassas Gap RR and through Salem, Va., (looks much like Salem, Conn.).

Nov 9

… marched 10 miles to Warrenton Junction, the most of a town I have seen in Virginia, and a place of great strategic importance as it is the junction of the roads from Washington and Richmond.

Nov. 10

Maj. Gen. G.B. McClellan, having been relieved of the command of the Army of the Potomac, we had a grand review from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., the general riding past us and bowing to the cheering, he was accompanied by his successor, Maj. Gen. Burnside. It was a splendid sight, but a sad day for the army. Curse the politicians who drove the general from his place just as his plans were developing. I never was a McClellanite till this last campaign, which has been managed splendidly. We have seized and held every gap in the Blue Ridge before us and got in the rebels rear here at Warrenton, and now he to whom we owe all this is removed.