ings could not be satisfied. One can have no conception of
the feeling of going day after day blindly ahead, not knowing whither or
why; knowing only that sooner or later you are going to fetch up against
a fight, and calculating from your surroundings the probabilities of
when.

We felt one satisfaction, however, that this was to be our last campaign
as a regiment. Most of our men had enlisted in the July previous for
nine months, and their time was now practically out; but, to their
credit be it said, they would not raise this question during an active
movement. There were troops who threw down their arms on the eve of
battle and refused to go into action because their time was out. Such
action has been severely criticised, and I think uncharitably. After a
man has honorably and patriotically served his full time and is entitled
to his discharge, it would seem pretty hard to force him to go into
battle and be killed or wounded. Nevertheless, as a matter of fact,
nearly this whole campaign was overtime for most of our regiment, yet
the question was not raised.

On April 28 our corps broke camp and joined the column northward. The
winter's rest had brought some accessions to our ranks from the sick and
wounded, though the severe picket duty and the excessively damp weather
had given us a large sick list. We had, to start with, upward of three
hundred and seventy-five men, to which was added some twenty-five or
thirty from the sick list, who came up to us on the march. It is a
curious fact that many men left sick in camp, unable to march when the
regiment leaves, will get themselves together after the former has been
gone a few hours and pull out to overtake it. I saw men crying like
children because the surgeon had forbidden them going with the regiment.
The loneliness and homesickness, or whatever you please to call it,
after the regiment has gone are too much for them. They simply cannot
endure it, and so they strike out and follow. They will start by easy
marches, and they generally improve in health from the moment they
start. Courage and nerve are both summoned for the effort, and the
result is that at the end of the second or third day they rejoin the
regiment and report for duty. This does not mean that they were not
really sick, but that will power and exercise have beaten the disease. I
have heard many a sick man say he would rather die than be left behind.

We marched about six miles the first day, much of o