beforehand secured the services of a
native as guide. Most of the latter half of the distance was through a
low, slimy swamp land, giving rank growth to an almost continuous forest
of sycamore, cottonwood, and other trees which love a damp, alluvial
soil, whose massive trunks were yet foul and unsightly with filth and
scum deposited by the receding waters at the subsidence of the river's
great spring freshet a month before. Stagnant ponds and mimic lagoons
lay all about us and in our very pathway, some of the deeper ones,
however, rudely bridged. Very rapid progress was impossible. It had
already been found necessary to send our artillery back to Savannah,
whence it would have to be brought up on the transports. The afternoon
wore on, warm and sultry, and the atmosphere in those dank woods felt
close, aguish, and unwholesome. Not a breath of air stirred to refresh
the heated forms winding in long, continuous line along the dark boles
of the trees, through whose branches and leafless twigs the sunlight
streamed in little broken gleams of yellow brightness, and made a
curious checkerwork of sheen and shadow on all beneath. Burdened as we
were with knapsacks and twenty extra rounds of ammunition, the march
grew more and more laborious. But the noise of battle was sharpening
more significantly every few minutes now, and the men pushed forward. It
was no child's game going on ahead of us. We _might_ be needed.

We _were_ needed. A loud, tumultuous cheer from the Thirty-sixth Indiana
came surging down through the ranks of the Twenty-fourth Ohio to our own
regiment, and away back beyond to the Twenty-second and Nineteenth
brigades in the rear. 'Forward!' and we were off on the double quick.
General Nelson was at the head of the column; there a courier had met
him--so at least runs the tradition--with urgent orders to hasten up the
reenforcements: the enemy were pressing hard for the Landing. Unmindful
of all impediments--trees and fallen logs, shallow ponds and slippery
mire shoetop deep; now again moderating our pace to the route step to
recover breath and strength; even halting impatiently for a few minutes
now and then, while the advance cleared itself from some entanglement of
the way--so the remainder of our march continued. It seemed a long way
to the Landing, the battle dinning on our ears at every step. At length
it sounded directly ahead of us, close at hand; and looking forward out
through the treetops, a good eye co