road, now drained into a sticky
clay mud, knee-deep, brought us to Laurel Forge, a place composed of a
dozen huts, a big forge, and nothing else, where, at about eleven A. M.,
we got a little something to eat, the first for more than thirty hours.
But _our trains were behind_, broken down, stuck all along in the mud.
This does not mean much to outsiders; but to us it meant that the shortest
kind of short commons would be our fate in future, a prophecy which we
found to our sorrow to be strictly correct. At about half-past eleven
o'clock, the men having nearly all come up, and a chance having been
afforded them to get a mouthful to eat (in consequence of the
expostulations of the officers against the Brigadier's orders to go
forward without waiting for food) we proceeded on our weary way; and about
three hours' marching over very good, but awfully steep mountain roads,
brought us to the spot designated for the division camp, where we went to
sleep in the customary rain, which fatigue had now deprived of its powers.

At this portion of the march, Judge Davies (of the New York Court of
Appeals) who had come to the front with despatches, joined the regiment,
and shared its fortunes in the subsequent movements until he was
compelled to return home, after our arrival at Waynesboro'. The Judge
seemed to take a great interest in what was transpiring; and it would have
considerably surprised those who have only beheld him on the bench, to
have seen him, in an old linen coat "split down behind," scouring the
country to the right and left of the line of march, in quest of supplies
and information for the Twenty-second; displaying, in these pursuits, the
most invaluable talents as a forager, and a capacity for enduring hardship
and privation which put many of his juniors to the blush.

The situation of our present camp was most picturesque, the scenery
magnificent, the mountain air bracing. There was only one drawback--that
the few wagons that had resisted the embraces of the mud could not be
brought up to the crest of the mountain where the camp was situated. These
wagons contained our rations (and precious little of them too); that we
could not live without eating, at least once a day, was made evident, even
to the great mind that controlled us; and so, as the mountain would not
come to Mahomet, Mahomet had to go to the mountain, and the next morning
we marched down the other side, in imitation of the king of France, of
pious mem