It snowed all day, the snow falling in large flakes, and the
weather is fast turning colder. I was detailed on camp guard and with my
overcoat on walked my beat for two hours at a time. At about 4 o'clock in the
afternoon five companies of our regiment received marching orders to go at
once, and striking our tents we hastened down to the railroad station on the
bank of the river, where we had to stack arms and wait four hours for the
train. The weather by this time had turned intensely cold and we were compelled
to build fires to keep warm, but no firewood was at hand. The boys spied a lot
of canoes stored away for the winter under a warehouse; these we appropriated
and had used up forty or fifty of them before our train finally came. When the
train did come, we discovered to our dismay that it was made up of stock cars,
bedded with straw. We boarded the cars at 8 p. m. and settling ourselves as
comfortably as possible, with our rifles in hand started at midnight for
California, Missouri.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 25
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