Dr. West Letter from Brandy Station, Virginia, to His Sister in Florida.

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[page 3]
waiting
on the slow motives of Genl. Mead to make an
attack. Genl. Lee is ditching and erecting
batteries on this side of the river. The last accounts from
Mead was that his army was in camp about the
vicinity of Warrenton junction, which [insert] is twenty five or
thirty miles from this place. He is still at work on
the Orange & Alexandria rail road which Genl. Lee
destroyed. He has has [sic] laid it [insert] down from Manassas to
Cattles Station. I hardly think he can possibly rebuild
it in time to make an attack on this army before it
will be to [sic] late to do any thing. I think it is his inten
tion to go into winter quarters some when in that country
& thereby prevent this army sending any more troops
to reinforce Genl. Bragg. We had a grand review of
Genl. Stewarts Cavalry yesterday and all of the General
Officers turned out escorted by their staff. It was quite a beautiful sight to see ten or twelve thousand mounted
soldiers, armed & equiped [sic] going through different evo-
lutions under the superintendence of Genls. Lee & Stewart
There were thousands of spectators, ladies & gentlemen in atten
dance. Another scene was witnessed by some of the
soldiers yesterday, of a more serious nature than a
review. It was the execution of two poor unfortunate
deserters in Jones Brigade. They were tied hands & feet
& deliberately shoot [sic] to pieces by a detail of men in the
presence of the Brig. to which they belonged. It must have been a horrible sight but you know such will be the
case as long as the war continues. I have had several
opportunities of seeing the sight, but never have obtained
the consent of my own conscience to see fellow soldiers
die such a horrible death as that.

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