The Story of a Regiment; Being a Narrative of the Service of the Second Regiment, Minnesota Veteran Volunteer Infantry, in the Civil War of 1861-1865 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the coeducation of the wagoners and the mules. This was begun here and some progress made. The earlier lessons aftbrded a good deal of entertainment to those not engaged in them, but were sadly demoralizing to the wagoners. It has been stated that no man ever broke a team of six green army mules without breaking his Christian character, if he had any, and the army chaplain who offered the long standing reward of one hundred dollars to the man who should drive such a team for thirty days without the use of profane language, did not have to part with his money. With all the comforts of the situation here, we grew weary of mere preparation, and the announcement that we were about to commence an active campaign received a general and genuine welcome in the camp. CHAPTER III. THE MILL SPRINGS CAMPAIGN. On the morning of the 1st of January, 1862, our brigade folded the tents, loaded the baggage train, and, with bands playing and colors displayed, marched out on the Columbia "pike." Thirteen wagons were allotted for the tents and baggage of each regiment, and they were loaded to their roofs. Each man was expected to carry his rifle and accoutrements, with forty rounds of ball cartridges, knapsack with all his personal property, overcoat, blanket, canteen, and haversack with three days' rations in it, a load of forty to fifty pounds. We marched that day fourteen miles, and the next, twelve miles, encamping near Campbells- ville. Here we found that most of the men were tired, sore-footed and hungry, and many of them had lost their overcoats, blankets, or some other part of their loads on the way. The roads were, however, hard and smooth, and our wagons came up in good season, so we made comfortable camps. We remained here four days while the wagon trains went back to ...