baton flourish ahead of our band at guardmount and dress parade, our fife and drum majors having been sent home this day as unnecessary appendages.

MARCHING THROUGH FAUQUIER COUNTY.

The morning of Monday, November 3, found us in marching array again, this marching being a part of the soldier's business. We were kept standing by our guns until noon, when we marched seven miles with but one halt, to Snickersville at the foot of the Blue Ridge, halting in a cornfield for bivouac.

Tuesday, November 4. Another march of six or seven miles brought us a mile southeast of Bloomfield. Lieutenant Flanigan led the regiment as Colonel Morrow was in command of the brigade. He organized his brigade staff by selecting Lieutenant D. V. Bell for acting assistant Commissary, and Lieutenant Whiting as Aide. General Gibbon was in command of a division. Scarcely an ablebodied man was seen hereabouts. The women were saucy secessionists, the young ladies singing secession songs. The raiding of flocks and poultry continues. The old regiments are more expert, but the new ones soon learn.

On the 5th, the regiment moved rapidly about fifteen miles to Piedmont in Fauquier County, on the Manassas Gap railroad, the gap being seen clearly in the west. The roads were rough and rocky. We encamped near McClellan's headquarters and numerous signal rockets of lurid red, white and blue, were sent burning through the sky. Company D was sent on picket, the enemy's pickets being in view, as disclosed by their campfires.

GUARDING THE WAGON 'TRAIN - COLONEL MORROW'S
OLD HOME.

On Thursday the 6th, the Twenty-fourth Michigan was detailed to guard the wagon train, while Colonel Morrow with the rest of the Iron brigade got an early start ahead. The corps this day marched by company front through fields; the artillery, baggage and ammunition trains moving in the road, thus guarded against an expected raid. Longstreet's corps of the enemy was at Warrenton, our destination, but it moved out as the Iron Brigade came in at 5 o'clock.

This is the town in which Colonel Morrow was born and sported in early boyhood. Directly facing the road by which he entered the town at the head of the Iron Brigade, stood the house in which he

spent his childhood hours. In yonder graveyard his mother lies buried. The town now is bitterly disloyal. Not a welcome voice was heard nor a Union flag displayed. All houses and buildings were closed and a few old secession flags fluttered in the northern breeze. The Iron Brigade moved out on the Sulphur Springs road about a mile and went into camp.

TRIALS OF THE MARCH-THE DESERTED HOME.

All day the Twenty-fourth Michigan plodded along for eighteen miles in rear of the wagon-train, which was stretched out for several miles, halting at many intervals for the teams to get out of some axle-deep mire hole. Scarcely would one wagon get pried out ere the next driver would get his wagon stuck in the same place. The enemy's guerrillas got their work in on a part of the train far away from the Twenty-fourth, and destroyed some of the wagons.

We passed through White Plains village early, the most dismal and forsaken looking town we ever saw-not a human soul, nor

It was midnight ere we reached Warrenton, through which we passed by moonlight, moving on to a position near our brigade. Weary and footsore, each man dropped down upon the ground for a little rest, but awoke in the morning to find himself covered with

snow.

We were in a thick wood, and the place was named "Camp

Flanigan."

During our tarry here the regiment experienced its first dearth of food, being two days without bread or other eatables. Colonel Morrow returned to us, and every little while "hardtack" was yelled out through the camp in impatient tones. For some reason our supplies were not up. At the end of two days a grist mill was seized, our millers set to grinding, and rations of corn meal were provided. This was cooked into mush, hoe-cake, and in other ways, as each man preferred. It continued to snow, and a cold wind, with a dearth of rations and smoky tents, rendered this a most disagreeable camp.

REMOVAL OF GENERAL MCCLELLAN.

Monday, November 10, 1862. General McClellan having been relieved from command of the army, took his farewell leave of the troops this day. Each brigade was drawn up in line as he rode by with uncovered head, his staff following. A few rods behind them rode his successor, General Burnside, and staff. The retiring General was cheered by his old troops. Considerable discussion, in field and press, followed his deposition. There had not been entire harmony between him and the President and War Office, for many months. He had one plan and the Washington officials seemed to have another, at almost every stage of the war thus far. Politics entered

largely into the debate, and as our regiment had served under him only thirty days, it seems inappropriate to discuss the matter in this volume.

He issued the following farewell address:

An order of the President devolves upon Major-General Burnside the command of this Army. In parting from you, I cannot express the love and gratitude I bear to you. As an army you have grown up in my care. In you I have never found doubt or coldness. The battles you have fought under my command will probably live in our Nation's history. The glory you have achieved over mutual perils and fatigues, the graves of our comrades fallen in battle and disease, the broken forms of those whom wounds and sickness have disabled, the strongest associations which can exist among men, unite us by an indissoluble tie. We shall ever be comrades in supporting the Constitution of our Country and the Nationality of its people.

GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,
Major-General U. S. A.

Some inconsiderate inferiors importuned him to ignore the President's order of removal and march his army on Washington. All such foolish proposals met with a most decisive rebuke in the above terse, appropriate and patriotic farewell, which can but command respect from friend and critic.

DRAWING AND COOKING RATIONS.

As at home, so in the army, eating is an essential part of life. In new regiments, it is customary to have a cook for each company, who with an assistant is detailed to prepare food for the men. Several large sized camp kettles form part of their outfit in which they boil the beef, pork, beans, etc. When the order "Fall in for rations" is given, the men form in line with their tin cups and tin plates. The freshly cooked food is frequently all given out before some at the end of the line get any-the fault of the stupid miscalculations of the cook, how much to give each man, or of the selfish "hog" who usually manages to get a double share. Dissatisfaction results and the company's cook dies early. His history like his epitaph is brief. He is fired back into the ranks and a new system adopted.

The orderly with a detail goes to the Regiment's Quartermaster and draws the company's rations of beef, pork, sugar, ground coffee, rice, etc., which are divided up in a more even way. The raw beef or pork is cut into pieces about the size of a tea cup, and then the men gather around the orderly or non-commissioned officer having the distribution in charge, like chickens around a hen, and as each man's name is called, he walks up and gets one or more day's rations, which he can cook to suit himself. If wasteful of his rations, he alone suffers.

Cooking rations is another feature of army life. Sometimes the pork is fried in tin plates, sometimes, like the beef, a slice is stuck on the end of a ramrod and held over the campfire, a hardtack being usually held under in order not to lose any of the grease that melts out of it. Our bread is of cracker shape and thickness, about four inches square, and very hard-hence the name "hardtack." The boxes containing it frequently were marked "B. C." evidently the manufacturer's initials, but the soldiers insisted that it stood for "Before Christ," when the stuff must have been made.

To make it palatable it is soaked a few minutes in cold water, which leavens it to a pulp, and we then fry it on our tin plates, with a slice of pork. Hot water has no effect on the hardtack except to make it tough like leather. The soldier fills his tin cup two-thirds full of cold water and puts in a spoonful of ground coffee. The cup is set over some coals and when it boils, his coffee is ready to drink. He sugars it, but as to milk and such luxuries, he bade farewell to these when he enlisted. And thus his meal is made, sometimes by a little fire he builds himself; at other times with his tentmates.