7th.—Some fighting to-day, by small bodies, with slight loss on either side. In the afternoon, finding our camps commanded by the enemy’s guns, we started suddenly on a move of what we were told was to be a mile or two. The rain poured in torrents, and, instead of marching a mile or two, we kept on the move until late in the night. Many of the officers made the soldiers carry their (the officer’s) tents on their shoulders, and this, in addition to gun and knap sacks, and whilst the officers rode unincumbered. In the organization of an army under a republican government, was such a distance between officer and soldier ever contemplated? We halted about ten o’clock, drenched with the still pouring rain. The men are almost starved, having been for nearly two days entirely without rations, and lie to-night in pools of water.
Journal of Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman.
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