Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/134

 128 Southern Historical Society Paper*.

Instead of frozen ground now over which to slide, we had soft and slushy soil through which to drag our guns. We reached Romney on the 1 5th, and went into temporary quarters in a church.

The cold weather and the exposure through which we had been for a fortnight caused a good deal of sickness and a good deal of disgust. We could hear that the men of Loring's command, which was a part of General Jackson's army, and which had joined it a short time before we left Winchester, were so disgusted that many, both officers and men, thought our General was deranged. They revived and circulated the well-known stories about his hydropathic theories and practices, and they would venture occasionally, in hear- ing of members of his old brigade, to express their belief, and to intimate that the brigade was as crazy as he was, since whenever we caught sight of him on the march we greeted him with loud huzzas. We could only reply by a denial of the grave charge against our leader, and an assurance that they would understand our infatuation after a while. Not many months passed before the rest of his army greeted him as enthusiastically as any of us did. If a loud shout was heard passing down the line, it was well known that the boys had started a hare or that "Old Jack" was riding by. It was a shout not unlike the famous Confederate yell which accompanied every charge against the ranks of the enemy in after years.

The men of our company who were most exposed were the drivers, and very many of them were relieved of duty by the surgeon, and some were sent to the hospital in Winchester. There was some dif- ficulty in supplying their places at Romney. Somes of the boys will recall the efforts of the newly-constituted drivers to curry their horses in that burying-ground at the church at Romney a con- scientious effort to clean the horses and at the same time an earnest effort to keep themselves out of the mud and not get kicked. Never were horses more kindly and respectfully addressed and more gently scratched with a curry-comb.

We remained at Romney till the 24th, when this company and the rest of the brigade set out for Winchester, the neighborhood of which we reached on the 25th January.

We encamped temporarily two miles west of Wood's thicket, at Lupton's. About this time two eight-pounder iron guns, made at Tredegar works, were added to the battery, and Dr. John Leyburn was made a lieutenant. On the 29th we moved to Camp Zollicoffer, the name given a camp in the woods four miles northwest from Win- chester, where we put up winter quarters. Here we remained till