Saturday, June 13, 1863, dawned clear and warm in the regiment’s camp near the Stevensburg Road, southeast of Clupeper Court House.

But the clear day was followed by “a severe storm and rain in the evening,” Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill recorded, and:

The 13th Mississippi regimental commander “Col. Carter issued an order requiring that all the clerks and detailed men in the Quartermaster and Commissary Department to go into battle when their business does not require their immediate attention.”

Hill, a lawyer before joining the regiment, had long been one of its quartermaster clerks and now faced the prospect of being a rifleman.