Great variety of ingenuity was exhibited in the construction of these quarters. A few were content with an excavation in the ground, over which would be pitched a roofing of tent cloth; but some of the quarters rose almost to the dignity of cottages, having walls of logs, the interstices closed by a plastering of clay, and roofs of rough-hewn slabs, or thatched with branches of pine. Windows were covered by canvas, and chimneys were built up cob fashion and plastered inside, and comfortable fires blazed upon the hearths.
About the headquarters of the generals were enclosing fences of sapling pines set into the ground upright, and held firmly in that position. Within the enclosures were grouped the tents of the general, his staff, and their servants, some of them having outer walls of boards enclosing the sides of their wall tents.
The weather was of a variety indescribable, except as Virginia weather—alternating periods of cold so severe as to freeze men on picket duty, and so warm as to make overcoats an insupportable burden. The rains made the earth everywhere miry, then it would freeze the uneven mud to the hardness of stone, then a thaw made everything mud and all travel impossible, and presently dry winds would convert all into dust and blow about in clouds.
One of the wonders of these times was the army cough; what with the smoke of the camp fires, the dust of the country, and the effect of the variable weather upon people living out of doors, there was a general tendency to bronchial irritations, which would break out into coughing when the men first awoke, and it is almost a literal fact, that when one hundred thousand men began to stir at reveille, the sound of their coughing would drown that of the beating drums.
Here for three weeks in preparation for another movement “on to Richmond,” we drilled, were inspected and reviewed—relieving these severer duties by chopping, hauling, and burning wood.
Those of us who had the opportunity, occasionally went over toward the river, where from the high lands we could watch the Confederate lines, and look on to see them getting the opposite heights good and strong in readiness for our attack.
On the 10th of December, the orders began to read as if they really meant fight, and the great point of interest in our discussions was as to the direction of the next movement—whether we were to flank Lee by way of the fords of the Rappahannock as was generally believed, or whether, as some said, we were to embark for Harrison’s Landing or City Point, and flank Richmond itself.
No voice was heard to intimate that any such consummate folly could be intended as to attack squarely in face those defenses which we had apparently been quite willing to allow our enemy to construct, and for weeks most deliberately to strengthen. But such was indeed the forlorn hope imposed upon the Army of the Potomac.
December 11th, 1862.—Reveille sounded at 3 A.M. The morning was cool and frosty, the ground frozen, the air perfectly still—so still and of such barometrical condition that the smoke of the camp-fires did not rise to any considerable height, and was not wafted away, but murked the whole country with its haze, through which objects when visible looked distorted and ghostly, and the bugles sounding the assembly had a strange and impressive tone.
The first break of day found the brigade formed for the march. The troops wore their overcoats, and outside of them were strapped knapsacks, haversacks, cartridge-boxes, and cap-pouches, all filled to their utmost capacity; and in rolls worn sash-like over one shoulder and under the other, were their blankets and the canvas of their tentes d’arbri.