History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5; prepared in compliance with acts of the legislature, by Samuel P. Bates.

578 THIRTY-FIRST REGIMENT-SECOND RESERVE. 1862
the cavalry and artillery, and on the left the Pennsylvania Reserves. The
President and his secretaries mounted, with the General and his Lieutenants,
forming a cavalcade of some three hundred, dashed down the line, while the artillery thundered, the bands played, and the soldiers cheered, creating an event of
thrilling interest. After passing around the entire force a position was taken
up in front by the reviewing party, when the column, led by the Reserves, commenced passing in review, and then filed off to their several camping grounds.
The battle of Dranesville was fought on the national side by Ord's Brigade
of the Reserves, with the Bucktails and Easton's Battery of four guns. The
First Brigade was at this time at Difficult Creek; but immediately upon hearing
the sound of battle, General Reynolds put his column in motion, striking across
the country to the left, for the purpose of intercepting the enemy as he retreated
on the Alexandria and Leesburg pike; but this movement was countermanded
by General M'Call, who had received positive instructions from MIClellan not
to bring on a general engagement.
The President, by his order, fixed the 22d of February as the day not later
than which the army of the Potomac should move against the enemy, the immediate object being the seizure of the railroad south-westward of Manassas
Junction. The retreat of the rebel army to Gordonsville, in anticipation of the
contemplated movement, rendered a change of plan necessary, and it -was decided to move by the Potomac, and operate against Richmond from the Peninsula. The First Corps, under M'Dowell, to which the Reserves were attached,
was left upon the Rappahannock, to cover Washington.
Joining in the general movement upon Manassas, the regiment broke camp
on the 10th of March, and proceeding in a southerly direction, arrived on the
29th of April in the neighborhood of Falmouth. On the way the fortifications
and camps which had been erected and held during the winter by both armies,
and, at Manassas Junction, the vast ruins of the depot and other buildings, in
which had been stored an immense amount of provisions and clothing, burnt
by the enemy in the haste of retreat, were passed. Smouldering ruins, wrecked
cars and machinery, vast piles of flour, pork, beef, wagons, lumber, trunks,
demijohns, tents, dismantled fortifications and rifle pits, presented a scene of
confusion rarely witnessed, even in war.
On the 2d of Aptil, Captain George A. Woodward was elected Major, and
about the same time Lieutenant John M. tlark, who had been attached to the
First District of Columbia Volunteers, with a company of Pennsylvanians,
was nominally transferred to the regiment as company F, but was assigned by
General M'Call to take charge of the extra line of caissons for the artillery
battalion of the Reserves, Subsequently Dr. Edward Donnelly was transferred
from the Fifth to the Second Regiment in place of Dr. Thomas B. Reed, promoted to be Brigade Surgeon,
About the middle of May, General M'Dowell was instructed to advance by
the route of the Richmond and Fredericksburg railroad, and connect with the
right of M'Clellan's line, then advancing upon Richmond via Peninsula. But
the movement of Stonewall Jackson into the Shenandoah Valley, with a powerful force, caused that purpose, for the time, to be abandoned, and three divisions, Shield's, King's and Ord's, with the Bucktails from the Reserves, were
detached and sent to the relief of the Shenandoah Valley.
On the 26th of May the regiment crossed the Rappahannock with the division, and passing through Fredericksburg, encamped qn the heights back of