Camp Pitcher--The "Mud March"--General Hooker in Command of the Army--Resolutions Adopted by the Fifty-Seventh--Re-assignment to the First Brigade--Anecdote of Colonel Campbell--Drill and Inspection--Adoption of Corps Badges--The Chancellorsville Campaign--Jackson Routs the Eleventh Corps--A "Flying Dutchman"--In a Tight Place--General Hooker Disabled--General Sedgwick's Movements--A New Line Established--Strength of the Fifty-Seventh and Its Losses.
The old camp to which we returned after the battle was now, by order of General Birney, called Camp Pitcher, in honor of Major William Pitcher, a brave and gallant officer of the 4th Maine, who was killed in the battle of Fredericksburg. The camp was located near Falmouth on the west side of the Richmond & Potomac railroad.
Drill and the regular routine of camp life was resumed. The paymaster soon made his appearance, and the humiliation of our defeat in the recent battle, and our sorrow for comrades lost there, had about vanished, when an order from army headquarters announced another advance against the enemy.
The weather for a week or more had been bright and clear, the roads frozen and in good order for the movement of the artillery and trains, therefore General Burnside thought the time propitious for an assault on the enemy. This time an attempt was to be made to turn the enemy's left, and get in the rear of their position at Fredericksburg.
Accordingly on the 20th of January, 1863, we broke camp at daylight and our army was once more on the move. This expedition is known to the old soldiers of the Army of the Potomac as "Burnside's Mud March."
After a march of ten or fifteen miles up the Rappahannock we reached the vicinity of Bank's Ford about dark, with the intention of crossing there and driving the enemy from their works on the south side of the river. About midnight a warm wind set in from the south, the rain began to fall, and continued to fall with more or less violence for the next three days. After two days of this kind of weather the project of attacking the enemy was abandoned and we got ready to go back to our old camps. The return march was a great trial for the men. With the rain beating pitilessly, the roads and fields soon became a vast sea of mud. Heavy details were made from all the regiments to build corduroy roads in order to bring along our trains and artillery. Finally we reached our old camp, where our huts were still standing, and these were soon roofed with our shelter tents and we were once more tolerably comfortable.