While in winter-quarters at
Liberty Mills, Orange county, Va., our brigade did picket duty at the bridge over the
Rapidan at that point, and on the
Stanardsville road until
Meade crossed the river at
Mine Run.
Here we confronted the enemy, and there was firing on the skirmish line, but no general engagement.
At this point the men suffered intensely from the cold.
The men, being compelled to lie in the rifle-pits without fires, were relieved every half hour, and yet when they came back they could hardly articulate.
To show how cheerfully such sufferings were endured, I will state that I saw a young rebel in the Seventh North Carolina, barefooted, without drawers, and his pants in front split up to the knee,take off his knapsack, take out an old dirty counterpane — the only thing, by the way, it contained — and when he was in the act of replacing his knapsack upon his shoulders, some three or four merry-hearted fellows ran up, crying out, “Hold on, Jake, hold on, and let us help you!”
Yelling and laughing, they helped him on with it, and when he had folded his counterpane and wrapped it around his shoulder, another glorious old rebel, almost as “seedy” looking, who had been sitting with his back against the works, watching the whole performance in silence, yelled out, “Now Jake, you have fortified one end, what are you
gwine to do with
t'other?”
Jake's only reply was a back-step and a double-shuffle, the wind all the while making streamers of his torn pants.
This performance was greeted with shouts and uproarious laughter from every looker on.
After
Meade withdrew we returned to
Liberty Mills.
