On the first of January, 1862, early in the morning, began the first in
the long series of the weary, footsore, leg-tiring, patience-testing
and body-exhausting marches which were to be taken in the coming three
and a half years.
The morning was cold--cold enough to do full justice to the time of
the season and the season of the year, what we characterize a bitter
day, and a bitter experience was it for the boys who were yet to learn
the attendants of war. A driving wind, with a fall of snow, made what
would have been a more than uncomfortable bivouac for the night, were
it not that to the weary traveller there is not less of comfort in
stopping than in going. It was the less for the greater hardship, and
the freezing could go on through the night unaccompanied by the strain
of the march.
Clear Spring had been left behind through the day, and the stop at
night was without tents.