over, it camped for the remainder of the night,
marching up to its old camping ground, on the morning of the 19th.

Here ends the Knoxville campaign, and the Eighty-sixth back in its old
camp on the North Chickamauga. This campaign consumed twenty-five days
of the severest marching and suffering that ever soldiers experienced.
Many returned barefooted and threadbare, in the chill month of
December, leaving bloody tracks on the frozen ground. This march may be
fairly numbered among the hardest of our hardships. No men ever bore up
under so many ills with more fortitude than did the men in this arduous
and difficult campaign to the relief of the besieged and almost
subjugated Knoxville. On this trip we saw more loyal people than in all
our previous service.

Long live the good people of East Tennessee; may they live in peace and
die in plenty!

On this march Company G, of the Eighty-sixth, met with a sad misfortune
near Louden; it was the accidental death of Sergeant Haynes. The column
had just halted when one of his company carelessly threw down his gun,
which going off, shot the sergeant in the head, killing him instantly.

The boys now made free to stick close to their shanties and
fire-places, for their clothing was scant and the weather extremely
cold. The division did not remain at North Chickamauga long, for, on
the 26th of December, it crossed the Tennessee, taking up camp at
McAfee's church, on the left of the Chickamauga battle-field and six
miles from Chattanooga.

CHAPTER IV.

ABOUT CHATTANOOGA.

The beginning of the year 1864 found the Eighty-sixth regiment in camp
at McAfee's church, busily engaged in building shanties and preparing
for the winter, which was extremely cold and disagreeable. These rude
habitations were soon made comfortable, and had we been well provided
with provisions and clothing, everything would have passed off gay and
lively. Eighteen hundred and sixty-three passed away, taking with it
many fond recollections, and many, too, that were not pleasant. The
hardships and privations we were called upon to endure, together with
our successes and pleasures, seemed now to be nothing more than an
apologue of which the moral is the only reliable feature. There was
good cause for rejoicing, for success had attended our arms on land and
sea. The Mississippi had been opened, and the enemy amazingly defeated
at every point in the South-west.

Our encampment on the Chickamauga battle-