ndful into the old coffee-pot. As
a result, the inexperienced frequently found themselves short after a
few days, to their discomfort and actual disadvantage.

CHAPTER XVI.

The next morning, March 27th, I went on picket. Some time after
midnight, on the 28th, we were withdrawn, and returned to camp. Orders
had come to prepare for the march. The camp was astir with busy life. In
a little while our tents, that looked so neat and trim last evening,
with their white canvas roofs and clean-swept streets, will be silent,
cheerless, and deserted. My tent-mates had taken down our shelter-tents,
and I had nothing to do but pack my knapsack, and all was ready.

In some of the dismantled tents the fires still burned, casting their
flickering rays upward through the air, while about them, sitting or
lounging at ease, were men equipped for the stern work of war, ready to
fall into line at the word of command. The stirring scene had in it not
a little of sadness. We had passed pleasant hours in this camp. That
tender something of association which clings around the thought of "the
old campground" breathed through the darkness that night, and glanced
in the camp-fires that dimly lighted up the warlike scene. These would
be our last Winter-quarters. For some, the next night would bring the
quiet "bivouac of the dead."

The strength of the Fifth Corps was as follows:

First Division, General Griffin, 6,180
Second Division, General Ayer, 3,980
Third Division, General Crawford, 5,250
------
Total, 15,410

The artillery consisted of twenty guns, and there was an escort of forty
cavalry.

The march began at three o'clock on the morning of the 29th, the Second
Division in the advance. We passed down what was called the stage-road
toward Rowanty Creek, the same road on which we had marched February
5th, at the time of the Hatcher's Run fighting. We reached the vicinity
of the creek a little after daybreak, and formed line of battle in the
open ground south-east of the residence of W. Perkins. Much to our
dissatisfaction the One Hundred and Ninetieth was placed in the line,
and the Two Hundred and Tenth was deployed as skirmishers. They did not
advance till the line was formed, and then not far enough ahead of us to
be of any use. Fortunately no enemy was found; but time might have been
saved by a prompt advance of the skirmishers wit