camp thoroughly wet, and very hungry and tired; but they soon
had a hundred fires kindled, and, gathering around these, prepared and
ate supper.

I never looked upon a wilder or more interesting scene. The valley is
blazing with camp-fires; the men flit around them like shadows. Now some
indomitable spirit, determined that neither rain nor weather shall get
him down, strikes up:

"Oh! say, can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?"

A hundred voices join in, and the very mountains, which loom up in the
fire-light like great walls, whose tops are lost in the darkness,
resound with a rude melody befitting so wild a night and so wild a
scene. But the songs are not all patriotic. Love and fun make
contribution also, and a voice, which may be that of the invincible
Irishman, Corporal Casey, sings:

"'T was a windy night, about two o'clock in the morning,
An Irish lad, so tight, all the wind and weather scorning,
At Judy Callaghan's door, sitting upon the paling,
His love tale he did pour, and this is part of his wailing:
Only say you'll be mistress Brallaghan;
Don't say nay, charming Judy Callaghan."

A score of voices pick up the chorus, and the hills and mountains seem
to join in the Corporal's appeal to the charming Judy:

"Only say you'll be mistress Brallaghan;
Don't say nay, charming Judy Callaghan."

Lieutenant Root is in command of Loomis' battery. Just before reaching
Logan's one of his provision wagons tumbled down a precipice, severely
injuring three men and breaking the wagon in pieces.

7. Left Logan's mill before the sun was up. The rain continues, and the
mud is deep. At eleven o'clock we reached what is known as Marshall's
store, near which, until recently, the enemy had a pretty large camp.
Halted at the place half an hour, and then moved four miles further on,
where we found the roads impassable for our artillery and
transportation.

Learning that the enemy had abandoned Big Springs and fallen back to
Huntersville, the soldiers were permitted to break ranks, while Colonel
Marrow and Major Keifer, with a company of cavalry, rode forward to the
Springs. Colonel Nick Anderson, Adjutant Mitchell and I followed. We
found on