On reaching New Market, men were gathered together in regiments and assigned to camping grounds, as well as the disorganized state of the army would allow.  All night long the stragglers kept coming in, and did so for several days.  We were suffering for something to eat more than anything else.  Rations of corn were issued, and this was parched and eaten, or beaten up, when parched, and a decoction which the soldiers called “coffee” was made and drunk.

The troops remained in camp until the last of October, then began their march to rejoin Lee.  The campaign of Early in the Valley had been a failure, if measured by the fruits of victory.  If, however, to keep the enemy from occupying the Valley, or from coming down on the north or rear of Richmond was the object, then it had accomplished its purpose, but at a heavy loss and a fearful sacrifice of life.  We arrived at Richmond early in November, and began building winter quarters about seven miles from the city, on the extreme left of the army.  Everything north of the James continued quiet along our lines for a month or more, but we could hear the deep baying of cannon continually, away to our right, in the direction of Petersburg.

When we had about finished our huts we were moved out of them and further to the right, in quarters that Hoke’s Division had built.  These were the most comfortable quarters we occupied during the war.  They consisted of log huts twelve by fourteen, thoroughly chinked with mud and straw, some covered with dirt, others with split boards.  We had splendid breastworks in front of us, built up with logs on the inside and a bank of earth from six to eight feet in depth on the outside, a ditch of three or four feet beyond and an escarpment inside.  At salients along the line forts for the artillery were built, but not now manned, and in front of our lines and around our forts mines or torpedoes were sunk, which would explode by tramping on the earth above them.

At these mines were little sticks about three feet long stuck in the ground with a piece of blue flannel tied to the end to attract the attention of our pickets going out.  But hundreds of white sticks, exactly like those above the mines, were stuck into the earth every three feet for a distance of forty feet all around, but these were marked red instead of blue.  This was so that the enemy, in case of a charge, or spies coming in at night, could not distinguish harmless stakes from those of the torpedo.  We picketed in front and had to pass through where these stakes were posted single file, along little paths winding in and out among them.  The men were led out and in by guides and cautioned against touching any, for fear of mistake and being blown up.  It is needless to say these instructions were carried out to the letter and no mistake ever made.  On several occasions, even before we had our first quarters completed, a report would come occasionally that the enemy was approaching or quartered near our front, and out we