January 4 — We remained nearly two hours where we fed our horses last night, and little after midnight we renewed our march through a broken, or rather mountainous country. We forded Mill Creek at two o’clock last night. Mill Creek is a stream traversing a scope of hilly country that lies southeast of Petersburg; it empties into the South Branch two miles below Petersburg.
At about three o’clock the moon went down behind the Alleghanies; from then on until day it was very dark. Just about the time the moon set we struck Ketterman’s Mountain, which is rough, rocky, and steep, but we pressed onward and upward, and when the first golden rays of the morning sun touched the distant peaks of the Alleghanies we stood on the summit of Ketterman Mountain, looking down the tortuous mountain-bound little valley of the South Fork. We descended the mountain and arrived on South Fork at ten o’clock this forenoon, where we had left our wagons and from where we had started at two o’clock night before last.
At noon to-day we got some bread and meat, and we were surely in a fine condition for its reception, as we had not eaten a morsel for over thirty-six hours, and marching nearly all the time. Sleep is cheap, but for the last two nights we did not get even the least snatch of doze, consequently I put in a good piece of work in that line this afternoon, elegantly executed, and the soothing charms of Morpheus’ embrace were never so sweet before.
