egiment,"
especially of the officers. I will not mention names, as the wives at
home would be jealous.

I see you talk of sending out a gentleman to take money home to the
families of the volunteers. But cuss the paymaster, "or any other
man." Why don't the paymaster come? Send _me_ some papers. I can't get
any without a peck of trouble.

CHAPTER XV.

The Winter Campaign in Virginia -- Didn't Know of the
Rebellion -- General W. H. Litle -- Drilling -- A Black
Nightingale's Song.

THE WINTER CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.

Your correspondent has been sick. Your correspondent has been in bed;
has had the rheumatism in his back, neck, arms, legs, toes; is down
with the mountain-fever; tries in vain to sleep; howling dog,
belonging to Captain Russell's "brigade," keeps up such an infernal
howling it makes me mad: wish Russell had to eat him, hair and all. It
was raining when I last wrote; think we had just been flooded out.
Well, the very next day we were again ordered over that Godforsaken
road, when the clouds again blackened up, and five hundred men tramped
it. What have the Sixth done that the heavens should open their
floodgates? All I wonder is, how the boys stand it. But they do bear
up under it nobly, remembering the Shakspearian passage, slightly
altered:

"The same clouds that lower upon the house of Abe Lincoln
Look frowningly upon Jeff Davis."

The boys are truly "ragged and sassy;" very many are shoeless, and
with a flag of truce protruding from the rear. The service in these
woods wears out more clothing than ordinary service should. Some of
the boys are careless, but many are, helplessly, nearly naked. Our
officers have used every exertion to get apparel, but the apparel is,
like a paymaster, "hard to get hold of." Our men have been sorely
tantalized by seeing regiment after regiment of the Indiana troops
paid off, before their very eyes. In fact, they have been running
round camp, with five, ten, and twenty-dollar gold pieces, shaking
them in our faces. Add Colwell--Corporal Add--paid an Indiana boy of
the 17th Regiment three slices of bacon and half a pound of coffee
just for the privilege of hefting and rubbing his eye with an _eagle_.
Colwell is a good printer; Colwell is a good writer; and, last and
best of all, he can eat more gingerbread than any other one man in the
army: he wants Wash Armstrong to send him a box of the article.

Since the accidental shooting of Lieutenan