It was raining on Tuesday, April 9, 1862, when the 13th and the rest of Griffith’s Brigade broke camp, and packed up.

By 10 a.m., reeking of the mud that spattered them, they began boarding the stock cars of an Orange and Alexandria train bound for Richmond. It was a long, slow trip, taking all day and half the night.

From QM clerk William H. Hill’s diary: “We arrived in Richmond at 3 a.m. and were provided with a fine breakfast by our Senators and Representatives in Congress.”

The Wednesday breakfast was not leisurely, however, as the army would be pushing on in a few hours, hastening to the fighting near Yorktown down on the Peninsula.