Monday, March 28th.
Weather cool but pleasant. On waking this morning I found myself decidedly stiff, sore and lame, and to add to my discomfort I discovered that the high-top boots I had worn the day before, which I procured at Harrisburg, Pa., just before the battle of Gettysburg, and of which I had hoped better things, abusing the confidence and feet reposed in them, had superinduced several large blisters and made sad inroads upon the flesh. Deeming it inadvisable to attempt another march upon the same footing, I determined to call for volunteers to furnish me a pair of army shoes, and in less than five minutes after the call had been made I was intrenched behind a pile of “Governments” large enough to stock a moderate sized Chatham St. “Emporium,” while the generous owner of each particular pair stood without the intrenchments extolling the peculiar excellencies of his individual property. This unprecedented liberality, however, was not, I grieve to say, due so much to the generous impulses which are said at times to actuate the unselfish heart, as it was to the unromantic fact that each member of the regiment had been supplied with an extra pair of shoes, and one day’s march had convinced him of the expediency of reducing his impedimenta to the minimum. Selecting a pair belonging to Artificer Benedict of my own company, and giving him credit therefor upon his clothing account, I consigned the offending boots to the tender mercies of the Quartermaster’s Department for transportation, and of course never expect to see them again. In the afternoon the regiment moved back nearly parallel with the railroad track about two miles, where it camped, each battalion by itself, our battalion, the Second, having been marched and counter-marched several times by Major Arthur, until the Colonel arrived on the field and in expressions more forcible than elegant, indicated to the Major the ground selected for each battalion. The rest of the day was spent in arranging company streets and erecting tents, and towards night we had completed our first regular camp.
