s man we soon had the rail in place.

From this time on we were constantly interrupted. Not a half-mile passed
without a rail up. Bonnell was always at the front laying track, and
I am proud to say that he accepted me as aide-de-camp. Other fellows,
unknown to me in the dark, gave hearty help. The Seventh showed that it
could do something else than drill.

At one spot, on a high embankment over standing water, the rail was
gone, sunk probably. Here we tried our rails brought from the turn-out.
They were too short. We supplemented with a length of plank from our
stores. We rolled our cars carefully over. They passed safe. But Homans
shook his head. He could not venture a locomotive on that frail
stuff. So we lost the society of the "J.H. Nicholson." Next day the
Massachusetts commander called for some one to dive in the pool for the
lost rail. Plump into the water went a little wiry chap and grappled the
rail. "When I come up," says the brave fellow afterwards to me, "our
officer out with a twenty-dollar gold piece and wanted me to take it.
'That a'n't what I come for,' says I. 'Take it,' says he, 'and share
with the others.' 'That a'n't what they come for,' says I. But I took a
big cold," the diver continued, "and I'm condemned hoarse yit,"--which
was the fact.

Farther on we found a whole length of track torn up, on both sides,
sleepers and all, and the same thing repeated with alternations of
breaks of single rails. Our howitzer-ropes came into play to hoist and
haul. We were not going to be stopped.

But it was becoming a _Noche Triste_ to some of our comrades. We had now
marched some sixteen miles. The distance was trifling. But the men had
been on their legs pretty much all day and night. Hardly any one had had
any full or substantial sleep or meal since we started from New York.
They napped off, standing, leaning on their guns, dropping down in their
tracks on the wet ground, at every halt. They were sleepy, but plucky.
As we passed through deep cuttings, places, as it were, built for
defence, there was a general desire that the tedium of the night should
be relieved by a shindy.

During the whole night I saw our officers moving about the line, doing
their duty vigorously, despite exhaustion, hunger, and sleeplessness.

About midnight our friends of the Eighth had joined us, and our whole
little army struggled on together. I find that I have been rather
understating the troubles of the march. It seems imposs