Sept. 6, 1862, a Saturday.

Wrote Spartan Band Private and diarist Albert Wymer Henley, “Our haversacks full of rations, we were again set into motion.”

The 13th tried to cross the Potomac River at White’s Ford, northeast of Leesburg, where the Army of Northern Virginia’s regimental bands were celebrating the army’s invasion of Yankee territory by playing “Maryland, My Maryland.”

But White’s Ford was so crowded with Rebel troops, the 13th had to move on up the river bank and cross at Cheats Ferry, instead.

“It was waist deep and 1/2 mile wide,” quartermaster clerk William H. Hill of the Spartan Band recorded. “We camped [under a little hill] 1 mile from the river on the Frederick town Road. Marched 18 miles today.”

They broke camp at first light on Sunday, and marched on, crossing the Monocacy River, a tributary of the Potomac, at Buckeystown, Maryland. The weather was clear and warm. It was Hill’s 29th birthday. He tried to put the best face on it.

“The citizens received us with much enthusiasm,” he wrote. “A few manifested their pleasure at our presence by waving handkerchief and hollering.”

But Attala Minutemen Private Mike Hubbert recorded that it was not “the enthusiasm which we expected.” Nor did they find many of the replacement enlistments they had hoped to.

Indeed, Henley wrote, “…being now [on] what is generally considered Yankee soil…It became us to be more cautious and circumspect in our movements. Straggling was strictly forbidden and but few dared disobey the order.”

They camped for the night within 3 miles of Frederick, Maryland.