es.

_February 12._--On recommendation of Lieutenant Frederick C. Lord, I was
to-day appointed by Colonel Kilpatrick First Sergeant of Company E, vice
Henry Temple, promoted to Sergeant Major. My appointment is to date from
the first of January, making me a very desirable New Year's gift, which
I shall strive to honor.

_February 22._--Snow has been falling uninterruptedly the livelong day,
and yet the boys have been unusually merry, as they were wont to be on
this anniversary before the war. Our celebration has been on a scanty
scale, and yet we have felt the patriotic stimulus which comes from the
great men and days of the past. And truly, the birth of the great
Washington gives birth to many interesting thoughts, especially at this
period of our history. A national salute has been fired from our
fortifications on the Potomac, and the whole country round about us has
been made to reverberate with the sound that welcomes in the day.

But all these patriotic manifestations have not prevented the snow-storm
and the cold. When we left our home in the North for what was termed
"the sunny South," we little expected to find such storms as this here.
While the summers are much cooler than we expected to find them, the
days being generally fanned by a beautiful sea-breeze, the winters
exceed for cold our highest expectation. The cold is not continuous, but
very severe. We have seen the soft ground and water-puddles freeze
sufficiently in one night to bear a horse; and in several days and
nights the frost has penetrated the earth several inches deep. The
snow-storm of to-day is as severe as most storms experienced in the
North. The wind has howled from the north-west, burdened with its cold,
feathery flakes, which to-night lie at least twelve inches deep in
places undisturbed. It is such a storm as our suffering pickets, and
indeed our entire army, cannot soon forget.

It may be that the vast forests of Virginia have much to do with its
peculiar temperature. As we travel from place to place we are strongly
impressed with the vastness of the wilderness, which covers thousands of
acres of as fine arable soil as can be found on the continent. How
different is this from the notions we had formed of the _Old_ Dominion,
while reading of its early settlements, and of its great agricultural
advantages. But when we look into its system of land-owning, and find
that one individual monopolizes a territory sufficient for a dozen
farms,