Page:A narrative of service with the Third Wisconsin Infantry.djvu/95

 crowded with the moving troops; we had, therefore, to double-quick back to the entrenchments, and wait until the bridge was cleared. Then we crossed over, the last of the army, entirely unmolested except for a few shells thrown by a Confederate battery.

We now returned to Stafford Court House, and at night pitched our tents on the very ground we had left ten days before. We were all thoroughly discouraged over the outcome of our expedition, and feeling, as one of our officers expressed it, "that we had gone out for wool, and come back shorn." The old soldiers who took part in that movement cannot think of it, to this day, but with the strongest feelings of disgust.

The camp that we occupied on our return to Stafford Court House was one of the best we ever had. It was an old orchard, with a vacant field near by for a drill and parade ground. Our friends, the Second Massachusetts, occupied one end of the orchard and we the other. Between us was a good baseball ground, where we amused ourselves at playing ball or pitching quoits. Every night after supper, the officers of the two