ecting to take our blankets was a
grievous mistake, as later we found out to our sorrow. We arrived at
Jackson a little before sundown, there left the cars, and, with the
43rd, forthwith marched out about two miles east of town. A little
after dark we halted in an old field on the left of the road, in front
of a little old country graveyard called Salem Cemetery, and there
bivouacked for the night. Along in the evening the weather turned
intensely cold. It was a clear, star-lit night, and the stars glittered
in the heavens like little icicles. We were strictly forbidden to build
any fires, for the reason, as our officers truly said, the Confederates
were not more than half a mile away, right in our front. As before
stated, we had no blankets, and how we suffered with the cold! I shall
never forget that night of December 18th, 1862. We would form little
columns of twenty or thirty men, in two ranks, and would just trot
round and round in the tall weeds and broom sedge to keep from chilling
to death. Sometimes we would pile down on the ground in great bunches,
and curl up close together like hogs, in our efforts to keep warm. But
some part of our bodies would be exposed, which soon would be stinging
with cold, then up we would get and renew the trotting process. At one
time in the night some of the boys, rendered almost desperate by their
suffering started to build a fire with some fence rails. The red flames
began to curl around the wood, and I started for the fire, intending to
absorb some of that glowing heat, if, as Uncle Remus says, "it wuz de
las' ack." But right then a mounted officer dashed up to the spot, and
sprang from his horse. He was wearing big cavalry boots, and jumped on
that fire with both feet and stamped it out in less time than I am
taking to tell about it. I heard afterwards that he was Col. Engelmann,
of the 43rd Illinois, then the commander of our brigade. Having put out
the fire, he turned on the men standing around, and swore at them
furiously. He said that the rebels were right out in our front, and in
less than five minutes after we had betrayed our presence by fires,
they would open on us with artillery, and "shell hell out of us;"--and
more to the same effect. The boys listened in silence, meek as lambs,
and no more fires were started by us that night. But the hours seemed
interminably long, and it looked like the night would never come to an
end. At last some little woods birds were heard, fai