Therefore, after a moment’s thought, he began:  “In order to give you a quiet, and therefore a more artistic prelude to the tragedy of the battle, I shall touch lightly on some of the incidents of our march to the field.  I will take up the thread of our experiences on the 15th of June, for I think you were quite well informed of what occurred before that date.  The 15th was one of the hottest days that I remember.  I refer to this fact because of a pleasant incident which introduces a little light among the shadows, and suggests that soldiers are not such bad fellows after all, although inclined to be a little rough and profane.  Our men suffered terribly from the heat, and some received sunstrokes.  Many were obliged to fall out of the ranks, but managed to keep up with the column.  At noon we were halted near a Vermont regiment that had just drawn a ration of soft bread and were boiling their coffee.  As our exhausted men came straggling and staggering in, these hospitable Vermonters gave them their entire ration of bread and the hot coffee prepared for their own meal; and when the ambulances brought in the men who had been sun-struck, these generous fellows turned their camp into a temporary hospital and themselves into nurses.

“I will now give you a glimpse of a different experience.  Towards evening on the 19th a rain-storm began, and continued all night.  No orders to halt came till after midnight.  On we splashed, waded, and floundered along roads cut up by troops in advance until the mud in many places reached the depth of ten inches.  It was intensely dark, and we could not see to pick our way.  Splashed from head to foot, and wet through for hours, we had then one of the most dismal experiences I remember.  I had not been well since the terrible heat of the 15th, and Strahan, putting on the air of a martinet, sternly ordered me to mount his horse while he took charge of my company.”

Marian here clapped her hands in applause.

“At last we were ordered to file to the right into a field and bivouac for the night.  The field proved to be a marshy meadow, worse than the road.  But there was no help for it, and we were too tired to hunt around in the darkness for a better place.  Strahan mounted again to assist in giving orders for the night’s arrangement, and to find drier ground if possible.  In the darkness he and his horse tumbled into a ditch so full of mire and water that he escaped all injury.  We sank half-way to our knees in the swampy ground, and the horses floundered so that one or two of the officers were thrown, and all were obliged to dismount.  At last, by hallooing, the regiment formed into line, and then came the unique order from the colonel, ‘Squat, my bull-frogs.’  There was nothing for us to do but to lie down on the swampy, oozing ground, with our shelter tents and blankets wrapped around and under us.  You remember what an exquisite Strahan used to be.  I wish you could have seen him when the morning revealed us to one another.  He was of the color of the sacred soil from crown to toe.  When we met we stood and laughed at each other, and I wanted him to let me make a sketch for your benefit, but we hadn’t time.