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 nex...