waking hours,
for both my guests had had varied and interesting experience and
knew how to make it the means of delightful social intercourse and
discussion. The chilly temperature of the tent was pleasantly
modified by a furnace which was the successful invention of the
private soldiers. A square trench was dug from the middle of the
tent leading out behind it; this was capped with flat stones three
or four inches thick, which were abundant on the mountain. At the
end of it, on the outside, a chimney of stones plastered with mud
was built up, and the whole topped out by an empty cracker-barrel by
way of chimney-pot. The fire built in the furnace had good draught,
and the thick stones held the heat well, making, on the whole, the
best means of warming a tent which I ever tried. The objection to
the little sheet-iron stoves furnished with the Sibley tent is that
they are cold in a minute if the fire dies out.

The rains, when once they began, continued with such violence that
the streams were soon up, the common fords became impassable, and
the roads became so muddy and slippery that it was with the utmost
difficulty our little army was supplied. The four brigades were so
reduced by sickness and by detachments that Rosecrans reported the
whole as making only 5200 effective men. Every wagon was put to work
hauling supplies and ammunition, even the headquarters baggage
wagons and the regimental wagons of the troops, as well those
stationed in the rear as those in front. We were sixty miles from
the head of steamboat navigation, the wagon trains were too small
for a condition of things where the teams could hardly haul half
loads, and by the 1st of October we had demonstrated the fact that
it was impossible to sustain our army any further from its base
unless we could rely upon settled weather and good roads.

Lee had directed an effort to be made by General Loring, his
subordinate, on the Staunton line, to test the strength of the posts
under Reynolds at Cheat Mountain and Elkwater, and lively combats
had resulted on the 12th, and 14th of September. [Footnote: Official
Records, vol. v. pp. 185-193.] Reynolds held firm, and as Rosecrans
was not diverted from his plans and was pushing forward on the
Lewisburg line, Lee ordered Loring to report to him with most of his
command. Reynolds, in return, made a forced reconnoissance upon the
Confederate position at Greenbrier River on October 2d, but found it
too strong to be ca