given
to be in readiness to move. Something was evidently in the wind.

January 18. Troops were moving up the river. Lee's left flank was to be
attacked by Hooker and Franklin. But the troops did not get far. A heavy
rain-storm had set in and the artillery was stuck in the mud. A regiment
which was stuck right beside our camp, knowing we belonged to Burnside's
army corps, would every once in a while make a diversion and give three
groans for General Burnside. As we were comfortable in our tents and they
were without tents, out there in the rain and mud, we pitied the poor
devils rather than resented their taunts.

At three a.m., the 19th, reveille was sounded. We got up and packed our
knapsacks. But we got no further. The order was countermanded and we went
on picket duty once more. The morning of the 22d before we went back to
camp, the Johnnies built a big sign board and painted on it in letters
that could be read a mile away, "Burnside Stuck in the Mud." On our way
back to camp that day we passed guns and baggage wagons still stalled in
the mud. During the day orders were given to return to camp, and as those
men who had been out in the storm wet to their skins for forty-eight
hours, covered with mud, with misery and disgust painted on every face,
plodded their way back to their camps, they made a picture of army life
never to be forgotten.

Soon after ten o'clock on the night of the 23d, a sutler who was
established near our corps, was charged, his tent was torn down and his
goods confiscated to the last cookie. The owner (an ex-cavalry officer)
made a great defence, wounding some of the boys. But what could one man do
with one little revolver, when faced by two or three hundred veterans of
many a bloody military and whiskey campaign? He was overpowered by the
gallant veterans and forced to flee for his life. Of course the guard
appeared after the mischief was done, the battle won and the wolves had
gone to their dens.

The last of November when we were relieved from duty down by the river and
went into camp back on high ground, from what we could see no one would
imagine there were ten thousand men within ten miles of our camp. The
country all about there was sparsely populated, and as one looked out on
the landscape from that high ground, practically all he saw was woods. How
different the aspect two months later as we were about to leave there? As
far as the eye could reach all one could see was parks of mili