‘The next night we camped in Madison County going by Liberty Mills. My uncle stayed with General Jackson and the next day getting with a battery of Artillery the officers of which he knew, did good service when the battle came on in (the) morning. One of the guns whose officers had been killed or wounded he did services with them and they greatly loved him saying ‘Parson you can fight well like you pray.’

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‘When we went into camp on the evening of August 8th, I told the boys as they were broken down I would skirmish around and see what I could get good to eat and after going to five houses, each filled with our men, I struck a fine farm and the lady of the house said ‘my dear soldier boy if you will wait a while, I will have you a good supper.’ But it was growing late and I was more than a mile from camp and the home was filled with men and thanking her I said ‘if you will give me some apples and peaches I will go back.’

‘She said, ‘take all you can carry.’ I soon filled a bag I brought and struck for camp getting there after sundown. (Soon after leaving this farm house a regiment of [Brig. Gen. John P.] Hatch’s Yankee Cavalry came up and captured nearly everyone in the house.) As we formed the next day we passed the house.

‘When I got to camp nearly all of the boys had eaten their supper and gone to sleep except a cousin George R. Patteson who I slept with. He said Will ‘I want some fried apples’ and took a servant boy. They had a lot of canteens and [went] down to a spring across the road in a corn field [to get] some water. So many asked that I took some [canteens]…and off went with him, we had just gotten to the spring when the moon came out from under a cloud and coming down in the corn field was a long line of Yankee cavalry. They had come so noiseless that had not his boy seen them we both would have been captured.He said they are Yankees and we both struck for camp — they calling us to stop. We at once aroused the camp. The drums beat and soon every one was in arms. They did not come any further but fell back. We did not sleep very much that night.

‘Early next morning we were on the march to Culpeper County. You see I was a free fighter to go and come as I pleased, for I was underage. (My uniform was a black jacket and what was once a white pair of pants and [I] carried along the same pair of saddlebags which amused the boys very much.) We pushed on at a rapid walk not stopping to eat any thing & about oneo’clock orders came to hurry up and we double quicked for two miles or more.’

Patteson’s first taste of battle came during the artillery barrage that opened the fight at Cedar Mountain. ‘At 2 o’clock we had barely gotten into position when every Battery in Pope’s Army opened on us, ours replying. We had not over half as many pieces of Artillery, but Stonewall came thru to whip that braggart and his thiefs & we did it. We layed for (3) hours under this heavy artillery fire of shells and shrapnell. While we were under this fire a school mate said to me ‘Warden why did you come in here? If I had been in your place I would not have come for a thousand dollars.’ I said I have come to help whip the Yankees and would not take a thousand dollars for my chance to help whip these devils who have destroyed our home.

‘At 5 o’clock the artillery stopped and the Yanks had advanced close to our lines [in] heavy columns of infantry. I was so delighted when it stopped I did not mind the small balls that were flying through the timber and around my ears like swarms of bees — but jumped up. My cousin George R. Patteson pulled me down saying ‘here come the greatest danger.’ I told him I did not mind the little ones but I soon found out. We were on the extreme left of our Army and Pope’s army being so much larger…attacked us in front and rear.

‘Just at this critical moment General Jackson rode up close to our company and told our Colonel to hold that part of the line at all cost. We heard what he said and we gave a cheer saying ‘General we will hold this until the last man is dead.’ In a few minutes we had driven back two heavy columns of infantry, but in our rear [the Federals] having (10) men to our one broke through.

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