Leaves from a Trooper's Diary

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1869 Excerpt: ... JHE jSTONE jIYER jTOLIDAYS. I Shall never forget the melancholy sweetness of the reveille as sounded by bugler Murdoch on that morning after Christmas, eighteen hundred and sixty-twoChristmas-day, raw, damp, and disagreeable, had been depressing to the spirits, and the order to move, coming just after our five days' ride from Kentucky, had put us in no very good humor; added to which was a defection in our camp, six hundred men refusing to march: why and where We, I purpose not to say here. Upon the whole, it was a melancholy regiment; and when the strains of Murdoch's bugle, touched with an eloquence which only he could give, floated over the camp, they were in sad unison with, and helped to deepen, the general gloom. Ere the notes had died away I pulled aside the flap of my tent, and looked out. The sky was dark and solemn, the camp still silent. But one person was visible--Major Rosengarten, full-dressed, standing before his tent. lie looked pale and handsome, and seemed to be listening to the last echoes of the reveille. Was it the voice of Fate, speaking to him in those dying notes, that paled his cheek and fixed his eye so vacantly? The morning was damp and cheerless. Rain set in early--a hard, cold rain, which continued throughout that day and the next. The troops that had encircled us were already miles on the march. Nothing remained but the forlorn ami dripping debris of the camps, and an occasional straggler searc hing in the ruins for plunder. We were the only regiment left to follow; and those of us who desired to go--say three hundred men--assembled by 8J o'clock under the command of Majors Rosengarten and Ward. An hour's trot on theNolensville like brought us up to the rear divisions of McCook, plodding merrily along in the rain and mud, jokin...