ever know how much we owe to that
toughest and most patient creature. We had seen the mule at his ordinary
army work in Virginia, which was well nigh play compared with the work he
was called upon to do, the hardships he was obliged to endure and the
sacrifices he was forced to make in that advance over the mountains into
Tennessee.

His rations were always short, his load a heavy one, and he was asked to
haul it over roads, the wretchedness of which can not be described nor
can it be imagined by any one who has not been in a similar place. It is
almost literally true that the whole line of march from Camp Nelson to
Knoxville was strewn with his dead comrades; what one of the boys said in
that connection as we reached Knoxville was not wide of the mark, namely,
that he could in the darkest night smell out his way back to Camp Nelson
by the odor of the dead mules lying along the way. Granted he had his
peculiarities, so had Caesar his. His voice was peculiar, he was very
handy with his heels, but he could make a supper out of a rail fence, a
breakfast out of a pair of cowhide boots, and pull his load along through
the day without a murmur. To me he was as near being the martyr of the
Tennessee campaign as the men who fought the battles.

We had been at Knoxville but a few days when news came in that the Rebels
were advancing from the northeast from the vicinity of Lynchburg down the
valley, thus threatening our communications in the vicinity of Morristown,
and Cumberland Gap. On the 4th of October we took the train for
Morristown. From there we marched to Blue Springs, where we had a little
brush with the Johnnies October 10th. They were soon put to rout and we
started back to Knoxville. We were sixty miles from Morristown, but in
three days we were back there again and took train to Knoxville, where we
arrived the 15th. In this campaign we saw plenty of marching but no real
fighting, and got well soaked two different times. We remained quietly in
camp at Knoxville until October 22nd. Then, however, prospects suddenly
became good for an active campaign. Longstreet, with an army of 20,000
men, one of the fine army corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, was
approaching Knoxville from Chattanooga and in the evening we took train
and went down the valley as far as Loudon to meet him and dispute his
advance. We reached Loudon about midnight and bivouacked in a large meadow
on the south side of the Holston River. Before morn