Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/469

 of generous appreciation in public opinion, but the confidence of the army in his ability and judgment was fatally injured. The number of desertions increased alarmingly, and regimental officers in large numbers resigned their commissions. A little later 85,000 men appeared on the rolls of the army as absent without leave. Burnside, deeply mortified, at once resolved upon another forward movement to retrieve his failure. He intended to cross the river at one of the upper fords, but a severe rainstorm set in and made the roads absolutely impassable. The infantry floundered in liquid mud almost up to the belts of the men, and the artillery could hardly be moved at all. I remember one of my batteries being placed where we camped over night on ground which looked comparatively firm, but we found the guns the next morning sunk in sandy mud up to the axles, so that it required all the horses of the battery to pull out each piece. The country all around was fairly covered with mired wagons, ambulances, pontoons, and cannons. The scene was indescribable. “Burnside stuck in the mud” was the cry ringing all over the land. It was literally true. To say that the roads were impassable conveys but a very imperfect idea of the situation, for it might more truthfully be said that there were no roads left, or that the whole country was “road.” In that part of Virginia north of the Rappahannock, where there had been, for so long a period, constant marching and countermarching, the fences had altogether disappeared, and the woods had, in great part, been cut down, only the stumps left standing. When the existing roads had become difficult, they were “corduroyed,” that is, covered with logs laid across close together, so as to form a sort of loose wooden pavement. So long as the weather was measurably dry, such roads, although rough, were fairly passable. But when heavy rains set in, the corduroy was soon covered with a deep slush which hid the