CAMPAIGNING TO NO PURPOSE.

1 59

military glory, or pursued the bubble reputation at the wooden cannon’smouth. We arrived at our old camp near Washington the following evening.

Virginia mud has never been fully comprehended. To fully understand ityou must march in it, sleep in it, be encompassed round about by it. (Treatis mud—Virginia mud.

In the early spring of 1862, when the Army of the Potomac was getting readyto move from Washington, the constant drill and discipline, the brightening ofarms and polishing of buttons, and the exasperating fussiness on the pai’t ofcompany and regimental officers during inspections, conveyed to us a hint, asone of our comrades expressed it, that “some one higher in command waspunching them to punch us.” There was unusual activity upon the Potomacin front of our camp. Numerous steam-tugs were pulling huge sailingvessels here and there, and large transports, loaded with soldiers, horses,bales of hay, and munitions for an army, swept majestically down the broadriver. Every description of water conveyance, from a canal-boat to a hugethree-decked steamboat, seemed to have been pressed into the service. Atlast, when drills and inspections had made us almost frantic with neatnessand cleanliness, our marching orders came. We formed in two ranks andboarded a little steamer lying at the wharf near by. All heavy baggage wasleft behind. I had clung to the contents of my knapsack with doggedtenacity; but, notwithstanding my most earnest protest, I was required toleave about one-half of them, including a pair of heavy boots and a choicebrick from the Harper’s Perry engine-house. To my mind I was now en-tirely destitute of comforts.

The general opinion among us was that at last we were on our way tomake an end of the Confederacy. We gathered in little knots on the deck:here and there a party were playing “penny ante”; others slept or dozed, butthe majority smoked and discussed the probabilities of our destination, aboutwhich we really knew nothing, except that we were sailing down the Potomac.

IPH

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TRANSPORTS ON THE POTOMAC. BASED UPON A WAR-TIME PHOTOGRAPH.