Diary of Private Daniel L. Ambrose: Monday, January 26, 1863

This morning our regiment together with the 27th Ohio, 81st Ohio, 7th Iowa and the 52nd Illinois are ordered to escort a forage train to Hamburg Landing and return. The 27th Ohio takes the advance and the Seventh the rear. We find the roads in a desperate condition, the mud about knee deep, and soon it begins to rain. We arrive at Hamburg about dark—mud, mud, and rain, rain; how terribly dark. The regiment is ordered to take shelter in the surrounding houses and stables—the horses being turned out to grope their way in the elemental storm. The boys tear down fences to make fires to dry their drenched clothes. The houses and stables for the regiment are limited and in consequence they are densely crowded. No sleep for the soldier to-night-no place to rest his weary body.

SOURCE: Daniel Leib Ambrose, History of the Seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, p. 134