Monday passed in much the same manner. About 9 p. m. of that day the Regiment, with others, was employed in throwing up breastworks, and digging rifle-pits on the west of the town. Expecting to hold it on the morrow against what they knew would be a terrible artillery fire, the men worked faithfully, and by midnight, works strong as the ground would admit of, were prepared. It was a
perilous work; performed in the very face of the enemy's pickets;—but was only an extensive ruse, as at 1 a. m. we were quietly withdrawn and assigned a position in the left of the town. The sidewalks were muddy, and disengaging shutters from the windows, loose boards from fences,—anything to keep them above the mud,—the men composed themselves for slumber. Before 2 o'clock an excited Staff officer had the Brigade again in line, and after moving and halting until 4 a. m., we crossed the lower bridge in much lighter order than when we entered the place; for notwithstanding urgent solicitations of officers, from Brigadier down, permission was refused the men to obtain their knapsacks. Besides the loss of several thousand dollars to the Government in blankets and overcoats, hundreds of valuable knapsacks, and even money in considerable sums, were lost to the men. The matter is all the more disgraceful when we consider the abundance of time, and the fact, that details had been sent by the Colonels to arrange the knapsacks upon the sidewalk, in order that they could be taken up while the command would pass. It was marched by another route, however, and in the cold, pelting rain, the men, while marching up the opposite slopes of the Rappahannock, had ample reason to reflect upon the cold forethought that could crowd a Head-quarters' train, and deprive them of their proper allowance of clothing. Six hours later, our Division had the credit of furnishing about the only booty left by the army that the Rebels found upon their reöccupation of the town.
Sadly and quietly, the troops retrod the familiar mud of their old camp grounds. The movement had been a failure—a costly one in private and national
sacrifices,—and no one felt it more keenly than the broad-shouldered, independent, and much injured Burnside. Strange that this costly sacrifice should have been offered up on ground hallowed in our early struggle for freedom—that the bodies of our brave volunteers, stripped by traitor hands, should lie naked on the plain that bears a monument to that woman of many virtues, "Mary, the mother of Washington"—that ground familiar to the early boyhood of the Great Patriot, should have been the scene of one of the noblest, although unsuccessful, contests of the war. Fit altar for such a sacrifice! A shrine for all time of devout patriots, who will here renew their vows,—of fidelity to this God-given Government,—of eternal enmity to traitors,—and thus consecrate to posterity the heavy population we have left in the Valley.
CHAPTER XVII.
The Sorrows of the Sutler—The Sutler's Tent—Generals manufactured by the Dailies—Fighting and Writing—A Glandered Horse—Courts-martial—Mania of a Pigeon-hole General on the Subject—Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel in Strait-Jackets.
If the reader can imagine the contents of his nearest corner grocery thrown confusedly together under a canvas covering, he will have a tolerably correct idea of the interior of a Sutler's tent. Probably, to make the likeness more truthful, sardines, red herring, and cheese, should be more largely represented than is customary in a corner grocery.