in a few days, and
join Smith's division. This division lay upon the other side of the
river, and although we had been anxious to move we did not wish to get
permanently fixed in the mud by moving there. We knew little of General
Smith or his division, only that the general had been trying very hard
for some time past to get the regiment, and we had little hopes of good
from the new arrangement. How little did we then suppose that the cross
of that old division would be one of the proudest badges of honor that
men could wear!

Sunday night came, and the order to move at once, came also. What a
scene of confusion! We had never broken up camp before, and the
excitement ran high. The pounding and tearing of boards, the shouting of
men and braying of mules, combined in a grand uproar. Bonfires blazed
from every part of the camp, and the whole night was spent in tearing
down quarters and loading the stuff into army wagons as they presented
themselves in great numbers. It was a rare sight. The camp glowing with
a hundred fires, and the men and teams moving about among them like
spectres. Morning came, and the teams were loaded, and the men ready to
march. The teams drove out and formed a line reaching down 14th street
from our camp nearly to the White House! One hundred and five six-mule
teams constituted the train for our regimental baggage; and so much
dissatisfaction prevailed among certain company officers that we were
allowed twenty-five more teams next day! Rain had fallen nearly all
night, and the prospect looked dreary. As the day advanced the rain came
faster and faster, until it fairly poured. The men waded through mortar
nearly to their knees.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when we reached Smith's division
and the ground on which we were to make our camp. The prospect was not
cheering, and as two or three of our staff officers rode upon the
ground, the place seemed forbidding enough. It had been recently the
location of a thicket of scrub pines, but the trees had been cut down
for fuel, and the stumps and brush remained, so that the mounted
officers found much difficulty in reining their horses into the midst.
Snow covered the ground to the depth of several inches. Here our men,
tired and wet, cold and hungry, were to pitch their tents, cook their
suppers, and make their beds.

The men fell to work heartily, and by dark they had cleared off the snow
and brush enough to make room for their tents, and many