have had a good cup of hot
coffee at that time it would possibly have been better, but we might as
well have looked for lodgings in the Waldorf-Astoria as for coffee at
that time and place. Imagine my feelings during all this night as I
reflected that I had a good horse, overcoat, and gum blanket
somewhere,--yes, somewhere, back, or wherever my regiment might be,--and
here I was soaking wet, chilled to the bones and almost dead from
tramping.

We got word at the Ford that the troops were to go back to their old
camps, and there was nothing for us to do but to make our way back there
as best we might. Soon after we started Colonel (afterwards Judge Dana,
of Wilkes-Barre) Dana's regiment passed. The colonel hailed me and
kindly inquired why I happened to be there by myself on foot, said I
looked most wretched, and insisted on my taking another bracer from a
little emergency stock he had preserved. I had been but a few months out
of his law office, from which I had been admitted to the bar. His kindly
attentions under these limited circumstances were very cheering and
helpful. We were all day covering the eight or more miles back to camp.
But early in the day the rain ceased, the sun came out, we got warmed up
marching, and after some hours our clothes became sufficiently dry to be
more comfortable, so that when we reached camp in the evening our
condition was much improved. This was due in part probably as much to
the relief from the awful nervous strain of the battle and the
conditions through which we had passed in that wilderness as to rest and
the changed weather. When we reached this side of the river that nervous
strain ceased. We were sure that fighting was over, at least for the
present. We found the regiment had been in camp some hours ahead of us.
Our corps was probably on the march when we left the hospital, and had
preceded us all the way back. I found my horse had brought back one of
our wounded men, and this was some compensation for my own loss.

We had been gone on this campaign from the 29th of April until the 5th
of May, and such a week! How much that was horrible had been crowded
into it. For variety of experiences of the many dreadful sides of war,
that week far exceeded any other like period of our service. The
fighting was boy's play compared with either Antietam or Fredericksburg,
yet for ninety-six hours continuously we were under the terrible nervous
strain of battle. Our losses in this action we