The 13th regiment spent an uncomfortable Sunday, Oct. 20, [1861] entrenched at Goose Creek on the Leesburg turnpike near Edwards Ferry. They were wet from drizzling rain, cold without the blankets they had left with their baggage at Fort Evans and there was nothing to eat. All they had was the anticipation of what everyone in the Seventh Brigade thought sure was to be a fight.

Pvt. Henley, the Spartan Band summed it up:

“The marching and countermarching for the last four or five days, the privations and hardships incident thereto, and the feigning and complaining of sickness had considerably reduced our numbers. But nevertheless the few remained brave and undaunted as ever…The roads were in wretched condition, slick and muddy….A drizzling and wetting rain still falling….”

Most of the rest of the brigade, also in rifle pits nearby, were in the same fix. Except for the artillery and most of the cavalry, which were in and around Fort Evans a few miles to the northwest. A company of the 17th Mississippi regiment also was on picket duty near Ball’s Bluff as it had been since late August.

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