of battle was again formed, arms stacked, and an order
issued that the ground would be occupied during the night.

In the morning the march was again resumed by a road which wound around
the horseshoe-shaped bend in the river. When approaching the river,
firing was heard, apparently as if from the other side, and a short
distance further details were observed carrying wounded men and ranging
them comfortably around the many hay and straw stacks of the
neighborhood. Inquiry revealed that a reconnoitring party, misled by the
apparent quiet of the other side, had crossed, fallen into an ambuscade,
and under the most galling of fires, artillery and musketry, kept up
most unmercifully by the advancing rebels, who thus ungraciously repaid
the courtesy shown them the day after Antietam--had been compelled to
recross that most difficult ford. Our loss was frightful--one new and
most promising regiment was almost entirely destroyed.

The men thought of the dead earnestness of the rebels, and as they moved
forward around the winding Potomac--deep, full of shelving, sunken
rocks, from the dam a short distance above the ford, that formerly fed
the mill owned by a once favorably known Congressman, A. R. Boteler, to
where it was touched by our line--they reviewed with redoubled force,
the helplessness of the rebels a few days previously, and to say the
least, the carelessness of the leader of the Union army.

The regimental camp was selected in a fine little valley that narrowed
into a gap between the bluffs, bordering upon the canal, sheltered by
wood, and having every convenience of water. The rebels had used it but
a few days previously, and the necessity was immediate for heavy details
for police duty. And here we passed quite unexpectedly six weeks of days
more pleasant to the men than profitable to the country, and of which
something may be said in our two succeeding chapters.

CHAPTER IV.

_A Regimental Baker--Hot Pies--Position of the Baker in line of
Battle--Troubles of the Baker--A Western Virginia Captain on a Whiskey
Scent--The Baker's Story--How to obtain Political Influence--Dancing
Attendance at Washington--What Simon says--Confiscation of Whiskey._

Besides the indispensables of quartermaster and sutler the 210th had
what might be considered a luxury in the shape of a baker, who had
volunteered to accompany the regiment, and furnish hot cakes, bread, and
pies. Tom Hudson was an original in his way, rather