Scottsboro, Ala, March
24, 1864.
Two months and twenty-four days without changing camp; which
is the longest time our tents have covered one piece of ground since we
organized. We have marched, though, some 35 days during this time, and some
such marching. Whew! I think I never suffered on a march as I did on the Sand
Mountain in DeKalb county. I wore a thin blouse, and had no overcoat. I'd lie
so close to the fire nights that the clothes on my back would scorch and my
breath would freeze on my whiskers. We had nothing to keep the freezing dews
off us, and it seemed to me that it went through my clothes and an inch of
flesh before the dew-point would be blunted. One night about 2 o'clock I had a
huge pine knot fire and was trying to warm some half frozen portions of my
body, when Captain Smith came over from his bed, as blue as a conscript, to
thaw out. He turned one side and then t'other to the blaze, time and again but
without much progress; finally he shivered out, “By G—d, Captain, I could wish
a tribe of cannibals no worse luck than to get me for breakfast. I'm frozen
hard enough to break out half their teeth, and the frost would set the rest
aching.” Next morning a lot of us were standing by a fire nearly all grumbling,
when the major asked me how I passed the night. “Capitally, slept as sweetly as
an infant, little chilly in fore part of night, but forgot it when sleep came.”
They looked so pitifully, doubtfully envious, that I got me laugh enough to
warm me clear through. Captain Smith, Soot and Lieutenant Ansley have been in
with me playing old sledge all evening. A storm came up, blew half of my camp
house down, and broke up the party. Have just got fixed up again. Those pine
knot fires we had on the mountains, made us all look like blacksmiths. Day
before yesterday a foot of snow fell. Last night only drifts on the north side
of things were left and to-night you have to hunt for a flake. Two shots on the
picket line back of our camp. Guess it's some of the 26th or 48th recruits. Out
of every dozen or twenty recruits, there's sure to be one who will see men
skulking around his picket post, and who will shoot a stump.
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