More from Barzilla Merrill, 154th New York.

 More from Barzilla Merrill, 154th New York.

This is his account of Burnside's Mud March in January 1863.

"The 17th [January] about 2 o’clock in the morning we had orders to march and have our tents and haversacks and we took our blankets and three days rations and of course we had to obey and we started in the dark and on muddy roads, Our course was up the [Rappahannock] river. By the by, we had to take our guns, cartridges, and belts, and when we had marched about four miles, we had an order to halt, load our guns, and put on our bayonets, and, as I said before, we had to obey, and we did this all in the dark.

Then the order was to march. This was obeyed and we moved through mud until break of day which fetched us about 9 miles from our old camp up the river. Then we made a short stop and then we moved about half a mile or so. Then we were halted right in the woods and not far from the bank of the river [where we] got some breakfast and rested for a while. And about the next thing that we saw [was] one or two loads of axes, spades, picks and shovels. Then we had orders to go to fixing road and we worked at this kind that day and the next, and the next day we went back to camp again. Had no trouble with the rebs then.

Then, [on the] 21st, we had orders to pack up and take tents and we went back where we were before, done more work on the road and two or three nights [more]. Then the order was to march and we move still [further] up the river a few miles and camped, expecting that the river would be bridged there and that we should cross. And what this work was done for where we was, I am not able to say. the night that we camped still up the river from where we made road and the day and night before, it rained quite steady. Consequently the roads was getting almost impossible because the whole army about here were moving and the thing of crossing the river was given up and the troops commenced to fall back. And such a time I never saw. Our artillery and baggage wagons cut the roads all to pieces and such deep mud I never saw. But our regiment were among the first that came back and we came within about a mile of our old camp and camped. And we are here yet so you see that Providence kept the two armies apart this time. Had our army crossed and the two armies have come together, there probably would have been an awful slaughter on both sides. Had this plan been made the first time the attack was made, I think that it would have been successful and it probably would have been now provided it had have been carried out. The move on our side was a large thing."