skin, but glad enough to get anywhere, if it was only away from those woods; and pushing rapidly forward, a short march over flooded roads gullied by the rain, brought us to what was called the ford.

The popular idea of a “ford” is a clear, shallow sheet of water, more or less broad;—at least we expected to see something of the kind. The actual ford we marched up to was a thick wood, filled with tangled thickets, logs, and the nameless floating things of a freshet, through which a mountain torrent, a hundred yards wide, tore and plunged like a mad thing. An hour before it would have been madness to cross; but now, by felling a few trees across the deepest holes, it had been made practicable, though exceedingly difficult, to get over. With pants rolled up as high as they could be coaxed (producing a most extraordinary appearance, as may well be imagined) the troops—by a series of climbing over the stumps, balancing along the slippery and unsteady logs which bridged the holes where the current was too swift and deep to be waded, creeping gingerly with bare legs through thorny thickets, and anon struggling waist-deep through the turbid stream, whose rapid current was filled with floating logs, which inflicted most grievous “wipes” on the extremities of the forders, besides rendering it almost impossible to stand without assistance—proceeded to cross.

Notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the operation, the frequent duckings and the no less frequent bruises from stumps and floating timber, the sight was so supremely ridiculous that the misery was forgotten in the fun. Roars of laughter greeted those unfortunates—and their name was legion—who, in their endeavor to keep piece, cartridge-box, coat-tails and other “impedimenta” out of the water, forgot about their footing, until they were reminded by a plunge from a slippery stump, head over ears into the depths of the stream, that that was the first, not the last point, to be kept in mind.

A short distance from the ford a halt was ordered, where the men collected as they struggled over; each company building huge fires and trying to render themselves a little less uncomfortable. Vain thought! Scarcely had the fires begun to throw a more cheerful light on the scene, when “Brigade, forward!” was heard from the front, and turning our backs on the comforts we had hoped for, we squattered up the road. “Squattered” is rather a singular word, but it is the only one available to describe the mode of progression up that road. And such a road! Considered a bad road in fine weather, in a region where there are no good roads, the most vivid imagination fails to depict its present condition. It wound along halfway up the side of a mountain; and between the steady pour of the rain, filling up every gully and making a mud lake of every hole, and the torrents which, rushing down from above, cut it into all sorts of hollows and trenches, as they swept across to precipitate themselves off the other side into the valley beneath, it presented every combination of evils which could appal a weary traveler. Along this road, mill-race, slough, stone bed—for it was all of these by turns—we pushed forward; but the pen fails in the endeavor to describe that march. Many things have we suffered and been jolly over, but it is unanimously voted that “for good, square misery,” the night of the 4th of July, 1863, is equaled by few and excelled by none in the annals of the Twenty-second regiment.

As a pitchy blackness rendered everything invisible, a lantern was carried at the head of the column, to prevent those behind from being lost. Every few minutes we would be plunged into a mountain stream running across the road, and which could be heard falling an indefinite distance down the other side; wading across this, in an instant, more we would find ourselves struggling knee-deep in mud of an unequaled tenacity; and the efforts made to extricate ourselves generally resulted in getting tripped up by projecting roots and stumps. As those in front reached an obstacle, they passed the word down the line, “Stump!” “Ford!” “Stones!” “Mud-hole!” Frequently this latter cry became altered to “Man in a mud-hole!” “Two men in a mud-hole—look out sharp!!!”

The only way in which it was possible to move was by following exactly behind your file-leader, if you lost sight of him you were helpless; yet, amid all these difficulties, we continued our march, with a calm despair that was prepared for anything.

At eleven o’clock at night the head of the regiment halted per force—stuck in the mud—even the officers’ horses too tired to go another step; the brigade itself was lost, scattered for the last three miles, wherever a turn or twist in the road had hid the guiding lamp; less than two companies were on hand, and many of their number had been left in the various mud “wallows” on the way; all were perfectly exhausted, so we camped where we stood—such camping-ground ne’er before was seen by mortal man—but it was Hobson’s choice, that or none.

Imagine a swampy, water-soaked, spungy compound of moss and mud, where the foot sank ankle-deep, covering a bank some twenty feet in width, which extended from the dense woods to the muddy road; no fence, no house for miles; every bit of wood and brush so soaked that one might as well have tried to start a fire with paving stones; and you will have a very faint idea of the cheerful place in which we lay down, tired, hungry, muddy, and wet as water could make us, to enjoy (?) a little sleep. At about one o’clock it commenced to rain—heavens, how it did rain! It takes considerable to arouse men as tired and worn out as those that lay around in that swamp; but one by one they got up with the melancholy confession that “the rain was once more too many for them.” By dint of patient industry a fire had been made, whose ruddy blaze seemed to cheer up the scene a little, and clustering around it the awakened sleepers sought a little comfort; but it was all in vain. Another sheet of rain; and the fire, a moment previous, blazing breast high, was a mass of water-soaked embers, around which huddled, for the remainder of the night, as disconsolate and miserable a set of bipeds as ever was seen. During the whole night but one solitary laugh broke the gloomy silence. A poor unfortunate corporal, who had been crouching all night on the end of a log, wrapped up in a rubber blanket, falling asleep in the vain endeavor to extract a little warmth from the embers of the extinguished fire, lost his balance while nodding to and fro, and rolled backward, heels over head, into the mud and water which composed the road; whence he emerged, such a pale drab-colored and profane apparition, as would have drawn a smile from the very Genius of Despair. In this general misery, rank was forgotten; even our Brigadier shared our fortunes, and slept in the mud like the lowest private. Arising before dawn—if that term can be used where no one had laid down—we pushed forward; and a most tiresome five-mile walk through the same horrible road, now drained into a sticky clay mud, knee-deep, brought us to Laurel Forge, a place composed of a dozen huts, a big forge, and nothing else, where, at about eleven A. M., we got a little something to eat, the first for more than thirty hours. But our trains were behind, broken down, stuck all along in the mud. This does not mean much to outsiders; but to us it meant that the shortest kind of short commons would be our fate in future, a prophecy which we found to our sorrow to be strictly correct. At about half-past eleven o’clock, the men having nearly all come up, and a chance having been afforded them to get a mouthful to eat (in consequence of the expostulations of