December 21 — This morning we were ordered to Charlottesville, to go into regular winter quarters, sure enough. We left our house and chimney on the Rapidan and marched to Orange Court House; there we fell in with the remainder of the battalion of horse artillery, and struck out for Charlottesville. The roads are in a bad condition, the hills are rough, and the low places are deep with mud.
Some of our artillery horses are weak, worn out, worthless or false; they stalled several times during the day, and we had to push, pull, and start the pieces by man motor. Beautiful work and very desirable for an artillery man on a cold day, to push at a wheel thickly covered with two kinds of freezing mud. We passed through Summerset, Barboursville, and Stony Point. The latter place is merely a post office in Albemarle County, ten miles northeast of Charlottesville. We marched till ten o’clock to-night, and camped one mile west of Stony Point and near the North Rivanna River. The country along the Rivanna is very hilly.
