They Had Their Cows, If They Could Keep Them From The Confederate Soldiers, Their Pigs And Their Poultry; And On Them They Were Living - A Most Forlorn Life.

Any advance made by either party must be over their homesteads.

In the event of battle, they would be in the midst of it; and in the mean time they could see no one, hear of nothing, go nowhither beyond the limits of that miserable strip of ground!

The earth was hard with frost when I paid my visit to the camp, and the general appearance of things around my friend's quarters was on that account cheerful enough. It was the mud which made things sad and wretched. When the frost came it seemed as though the army had overcome one of its worst enemies. Unfortunately cold weather did not last long. I have been told in Washington that they rarely have had so open a season. Soon after my departure that terrible enemy the mud came back upon them; but during my stay the ground was hard and the weather very sharp. I slept in a tent, and managed to keep my body warm by an enormous overstructure of blankets and coats; but I could not keep my head warm. Throughout the night I had to go down like a fish beneath the water for protection, and come up for air at intervals, half smothered. I had a stove in my tent; but the heat of that, when lighted, was more terrible than the severity of the frost.

The tents of the brigade with which I was staying had been pitched not without an eye to appearances. They were placed in streets as it were, each street having its name, and between them screens had been erected of fir poles and fir branches, so as to keep off the wind. The outside boundaries of the nearest regiment were ornamented with arches, crosses, and columns, constructed in the same way; so that the quarters of the men were reached, as it were, through gateways. The whole thing was pretty enough; and while the ground was hard the camp was picturesque, and a visit to it was not unpleasant. But unfortunately the ground was in its nature soft and deep, composed of red clay; and as the frost went and the wet weather came, mud became omnipotent and destroyed all prettiness. And I found that the cold weather, let it be ever so cold, was not severe upon the men. It was wet which they feared and had cause to fear, both for themselves and for their horses. As to the horses, but few of them were protected by any shelter or covering whatsoever. Through both frost and wet they remained out, tied to the wheel of a wagon or to some temporary rack at which they were fed. In England we should imagine that any horse so treated must perish; but here the animal seemed to stand it. Many of them were miserable enough in appearance, but nevertheless they did the work required of them.

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