CHAPTER I
SKETCH OF CAMP LIFE THE WINTER BEFORE THE SPOTTSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN
Morton’s Ford
From Orange Court House, Virginia, the road running northeast into Culpeper crosses Morton’s Ford of the Rapidan River, which, in December, 1863, lay between the “Federal Army of the Potomac” and the “Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.” The Ford is nineteen miles from Orange Court House.
Just after the battle of Mine Run, November 26 to 28, our Battery left its bivouac near the Court House, and marched to the Ford. As the road reaches a point within three-quarters of a mile of the river, it rises over a sharp hill and thence winds its way down the hill to the Ford. On the ridge, just where the road crosses it, the guns of the Battery, First Company of Richmond Howitzers, were placed in position, commanding the Ford, and the Howitzer Camp was to the right of the road, in the pine woods just back of the ridge. We had been sent here to help the Infantry pickets to watch the enemy, and guard the Ford. Orders were that we should remain in this position all winter, and were to make ourselves as comfortable as we could, with a view to this long stay. We got there December 2 and 3, and, in fact, did stay there until the opening of the spring campaign, May 3, 1864.
Building Camp Quarters
With these instructions, as soon as we placed our guns in battery on the hill, we went promptly to work to fix up winter quarters in the shelter of the pines down the hill just a few rods back of the guns. It was getting very cold, and rough weather threatened, so we pitched in and worked hard to get ready for it.
Each group of tent mates chose their own site and thereon built such a house as suited their energy, and judgment, or fancy. Some few of the lazy ones stayed under canvas all winter, but most of us constructed better quarters. In my group, four of us lived together, and we built after this manner. On our selected site, we marked off a space about ten feet square. We dug to the line all around, and to a depth of three or four feet in the ground—this going below the surface of the ground gave a better protection against wind and cold than any wall one could build—and on that bleak hill you wanted all the shield from wind that you could get. Having dug a hole ten feet square and three feet deep, we went into the woods and cut, squared, and carried on our shoulders logs, twelve or eighteen inches thick, and twelve feet long—enough to build around three sides of that hole a wall four feet high. Half of the fourth side was taken up by the chimney, which was built of short logs split in half and covered well inside with mud. With such suitable stones as we could pick up, we lined the fire place immediately around the fire, and as far above as we had rocks to do it with. The other half of the fourth side was left for the door, over which was hung any old blanket or other cloth that we could beg, borrow or steal.
The log walls done, we dug a deep hole, loosened up the clay at the bottom, poured in water and mixed up a lot of mud with which we chinked up the interstices between the logs and covered the wood in the chimney. The earth that had been thrown up in digging the hole, we now banked up against the log wall all around, which made it wind proof; and then over this gem of architecture we stretched our fly. We had no closed tents—only a fly, a straight piece of tent cloth all open at the sides. Our fly, supported by a rude pole, and drawn down and firmly fastened to the top of the log wall, made the roof of the house.
“Housewarming” on Parched Corn, Persimmons and Water