Page:A narrative of service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry.djvu/118

 spread, and then there would be a wreck; in fact, scarcely a day passed on which there would not be an accident of some kind. Large details of men from our Regiment were set to work to bring the road in repair, and by Christmas it was in fairly good condition.

Shortly after we were established at Wartrace, I secured leave of absence to go to Chattanooga in search of my brother, who had enlisted in the Tenth Wisconsin. I had not heard of him since the battle of Chickamauga. My route was by rail to Bridgeport on the Tennessee River, then in a small captured Confederate steamer called "Paint Rock," up the Tennessee to Chattanooga.

The "Paint Rock" was loaded to its utmost capacity with hardtack for the starving Union men who held Chattanooga. The river route to that town had only recently been opened up by General Hooker, with the Eleventh Corps and the Second Division of our Corps. Previously it had been necessary to wheel all supplies sixty miles over a mountain road, where teams could scarcely haul the forage for their own trip. Even