Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/166

152 snow, which he supposed would entirely break up his Sunday service, as they had no chapel; but, at the appointed hour, he heard singing at their usual place of worship, and looking out he saw that a large congregation had assembled. He, of course, went at once to the place and preached to deeply interested men, who stood in snow several inches deep, and among the number he counted fourteen barefooted men, besides scores whose shoes afforded very little protection from the snow. The men used to say: "We go on picket; we march and fight, and do all other military duty in any weather that comes, and we cannot see why we should allow the weather to interrupt our religious privileges." At first the popular impression, even among the chaplains, was that but little could be done during an active campaign except in the hospitals. But it soon appeared that the faithful chaplain who would stick to his post and watch for opportunities; who was ready to resign his horse to some poor fellow with bare and blistered feet while he marched in the column as it hurried forward; who went with his men on picket, who bivouacked with them in the pelting storm, and who went with them into the leaden and iron hail of battle, who, in a word, was ready to share their hardships and dangers, such a man had, during the most active campaign, golden opportunities for pointing the sick and wounded to the great Physician; the hungry to "the bread of life;" the thirsty to "the water of life;" the weary to " the rest that remaineth for the people of God," and the dying to "the resurrection and the life."

I can recall, as if it were last night, some of those scenes on that famous "Valley campaign, " which won for our brave boys the sobriquet of "Jackson's foot cavalry." Starting at "early dawn" (a favorite hour, by the way, with our great chief, of whom the boys used to say, "He always marches at early dawn, except when he starts the night before