TWO SHORT CAMPAIGNS

“What boots the oft-repeated tale of strife,
The feast of vultures, and the waste of life? 
The varying fortune of each separate field,
The fierce that vanquish, and the faint that yield?”

          
                                                                          —­BYRON.

Longstreet’s corps had marched out by the Valley, and now occupied a line east of the Blue Ridge; Jackson remained yet at Bunker Hill.  We heard that Burnside had superseded McClellan; speculation was rife as to the character of the new commander.  It was easy to believe that the Federal army would soon give us work to do; its change of leaders clearly showed aggressive purpose, McClellan being distinguished more for caution than for disposition to attack.

On November 22d we moved southward, up the Shenandoah Valley.  The march lasted many days.  We passed through Winchester, Strasburg, Woodstock, and turned eastward through Massanutten Gap, and marched to Madison Court-House.  From Madison we marched to Orange, and finally to Fredericksburg, where the army was again united by our arrival on December 3d.  The march had been painful.  For part of the time I had been barefoot.  Many of the men were yet without shoes.

The weather was now cold.  Snow fell.  I was thinly clad.  On the morning of December 4th, after a first night in bivouac in the lines, I awoke with a great pain in my chest and a “gone” feeling generally.  The surgeon told me that I had typhoid pneumonia, and ordered me to the camp hospital, which consisted of two or three Sibley tents in the woods.  I was laid on a bed of straw and covered with blankets.

I lay in the camp hospital until the morning of the 14th.  How far off the regiment was I do not know; however, one or two men of Company H came to see me every day and attended to my wants.  On the 11th two of them came and told me good-by; they were ordered to march; the enemy was crossing the river and was expected to attack.  These men told me afterward that when they said good-by they felt they were saying the long farewell; I was not expected to recover.

On the 13th, flat on my back, I heard the battle of Fredericksburg roaring at the front, some two or three miles away, I was too ill to feel great interest.  On the 14th, early in the morning, I was lifted into an open wagon and covered with a single blanket.  In this condition I was jolted to a place called Hamilton’s Crossing.  There I was lifted out of the wagon and laid upon the ground.  There were others near me, all lying on the ground.  In many places the ground was white with snow; the wind cut like a blade of ice; I was freezing.  At about two o’clock some men put me into a car—­a common box freight-car, which had no heat and the doors of which were kept open.  After a while the car started.  At twelve o’clock that night the train reached Richmond.  Some men put me into an ambulance.  I was taken to Camp Winder Hospital, several miles out, which place was reached about two o’clock in the morning of the 15th.  That I survived that day—­the 14th,—­has always been a wonder,