This narrative only paints the picture, and gives a sample of the Anglo-Saxon American soldier of the generation just gone; it shed lustre upon our race. This generation has done the same--all honor to both!
Let us Americans, at all cost, keep pure the Anglo-Saxon blood, to which this America belongs, of right; let us as a nation, Americans all, work and dwell together in true comradeship, and let our nation walk in just and right ways, for our country. Then, indeed, our heart's aspiration shall be fulfilled.
"And the Star-Spangled Banner _forever_ shall wave O'er the land of the free--and the home of the brave."
As a preface to the sketch of the active campaign, I have given some account of our life in the winter quarters camp, the winter before, from which we marched to battle when the Spottsylvania Campaign opened.
SKETCH OF CAMP LIFE THE WINTER BEFORE THE SPOTTSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN
From Orange Court House, Virginia, the road running northeast into Culpeper crosses Morton's Ford of the Rapidan River, which, in December, 1863, lay between the "Federal Army of the Potomac" and the "Confederate Army of Northern Virginia." The Ford is nineteen miles from Orange Court House.
Just after the battle of Mine Run, November 26 to 28, our Battery left its bivouac near the Court House, and marched to the Ford. As the road reaches a point within three-quarters of a mile of the river, it rises over a sharp hill and thence winds its way down the hill to the Ford. On the ridge, just where the road crosses it, the guns of the Battery, First Company of Richmond Howitzers, were placed in position, commanding the Ford, and the Howitzer Camp was to the right of the road, in the pine woods just back of the ridge. We had been sent here to help the Infantry pickets to watch the enemy, and guard the Ford. Orders were that we should remain in this position all winter, and were to make ourselves as comfortable as we could, with a view to this long stay. We got there December 2 and 3, and, in fact, did stay there until the opening of the spring campaign, May 3, 1864.
With these instructions, as soon as we placed our guns in battery on the hill, we went promptly to work to fix up winter quarters in the shelter of the pines down the hill just a few rods back of the guns. It was getting very cold, and rough weather threatened, so we pitched in and worked hard to get ready for it.