1 5 8

CAMPAIGNING TO NO PURPOSE.

depths of mud, but it came out a number twelve, elongated, yellow, andnasty. Occasionally a boot or shoe would be left in the mud, and it wouldtake an exploring expedition to find it. Wad Rider declared that thoughVirginia was once in the Union, she was now in the mud. The boys calledtheir shoes “pontons,” “mud-hooks,” “soil-excavators,” and other names not-quite so polite.

The mud was in constant league with the enemy; an efficient ally in defen-sive warfare; equivalent to reenforcements of twenty thousand infantry.To realize the situation, spread tar a foot deep all over your back-yard, andthen try to walk through it; particularly is this experiment recommendedto those citizens who were constantly crying, “Why doesn’t the armymove ? ”

Mud took the military valor all out of a man. Any one would think, fromreading the Northern newspapers, that we soldiers had macadamized roadsover which to charge at the enemy. It would have pleased us much to haveseen those “On to Richmond” people put over a 5-mile course in the Virginia mud, loaded with a 40-pound knapsack, 60 roxmds of cartridges, and hav-ersacks filled with 4 days’ rations.

Without exaggeration, the mud has never had full credit for the immensehelp it afforded the enemy, as it prevented us from advancing upon them.The ever-present foe, winter and spring, in Old Virginia , was Mud. Summerand fall it was Dust, which was preferable; though marching without water,and with dust filling one’s nostrils and throat, was not pleasant.

That first night out we went into camp near a small brook, where wewashed off enough of the mud to recognize our feet. We had hard-tack andcoffee for supper. And didn’t it “ go good! ” What sauce ever equaled thatof hunger ? Truly the feast is in the palate. How we slept! Feet wet,boots for a pillow, the mud oozing up around our rubber blankets, but mak-ing a soft bed withal, and we sleeping the dreamless sleep of tired men. Iwould be willing, occasionally, to make another such march, through the samemud, for such a sleep.

At early daylight we fell in for rations of hot coffee and hard-tack. Imme-diately after, we took up our line of march, or, as Wad Rider expressed it,“ began to pull mud.” With intervals of rest, we “ pulled mud ” until about4 o’clock in the afternoon, when we halted near Manassas Junction . Whohas not heard of the “Quaker guns” at Manassas ? We met the logsmounted on wheels, around the fortifications of Manassas , and can assureyou they were not so formidable as the mud.

After thoroughly inspecting our enemies,—the logs,—we re-formed ourranks and took the back track for Washington. The rain soon began to fall,coming down literally in sheets; it ran down our backs in rivulets, and weshould have run had we met the enemy about that time—that is, if the mudhad permitted; for there is nothing which will so take the courage out of asoldier as to wet the seat of his trousers. On we went pumping and churn-ing up and down in the mud, till about 10 o’clock, when we pitched campnear the roadside, as wet and bedraggled a set of men as ever panted for