An Artilleryman’s Diary–Jenkin Lloyd Jones

Larkinsville, Ala., Saturday, Dec. 26. Four small crackers (⅓ day’s rations) were issued to us this morning for breakfast, reserving the others for the day’s march. Struck tents in a drenching rain, and continued all day. We marched along through the mud and rain, part of the roads exceedingly bad, being a low marshy ground covered with water for miles, timbered with large beech trees and green holly. Seottsboro is a very pretty little station five miles from Larkinsville, headquarters of the 15th Corps. Warning given not to enter houses as smallpox was prevalent, one house had five patients, another a corpse. Reached this place at 4 P. M. wet, footsore, and quite hungry, and had to wait until after night for rations 3rd Brigade to go in winter quarters. Plenty of cedar rails.