Diary of Private John C. West, Sunday, May 31, 1863

This morning about daylight we received orders to be ready to march at 8:30. All is bustle now getting ready. I have been to the spring for water and have just returned; have read the 52nd chapter of Isaiah, and 35th Psalm; am now about to pack up.

Sunday evening at sunset.—We have marched about fourteen miles to-day—a hot dusty march. Nothing of interest occurred. We are now bivouacked in a pine grove twenty miles from Fredericksburg, with our arms stacked with orders to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. The march has not fatigued me anything like as much as many hunts I have taken at home. Some friend of the soldiers has been kind enough to send us a number of religious papers, and I am now enjoying the "Christian Observer," published at Richmond.

SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, pp. 56-7