Thus far during the campaign the Goreville Volunteers had lost six men. Besides this, nine were in the hospital, four wounded, and five down with the swamp fever and other sickness. For the sick ones, the boys did all they possibly could, buying them delicacies and the like, and sitting by them and reading the news in a low tone, so as not to disturb others. So one day after another went by until the time mentioned had passed. Then came the orders to strike tents, and once more the army was set in motion, with its face turned towards Richmond, about ten miles distant. The great crisis of the peninsula campaign was at hand. CHAPTER XXIII THE LIVING WALL AT FAIR OAKS “We’re off for Richmond, now!” cried Harry, enthusiastically, as they stood at parade rest, while waiting for their turn to fall in with the advancing column. “If everything goes right, I’ll wager we’ll be walking the streets of the town inside of another week.” “I trust you speak the truth, Harry,” answered Louis. “The question is, will everything go right? The roads are still about as bad as ever and they say the Chickahominy River is terribly swollen and the bridges far from safe.” “If we can’t use the old bridges the rebels built, we’ll build new ones,” went on Harry Bingham, in an off-handed way, as though bridge-building were of small importance. “The only trouble ahead that I can see is, that this confounded rain may increase and wash us all off the peninsula. Creation, but I never saw such a wet season in my life! Why, ever since we started it has rained two days out of three!” Harry was right about the rain. Perhaps some of my young readers may grow tired of these oft-repeated statements concerning the weather, but they are necessary, in order to explain why it was the army moved so slowly and why battle after battle was delayed. Old soldiers upon both sides have declared over and over again that they never saw or heard of a campaign in which rain and mud played such a large and important part, and even many war reports, usually supposed to be the briefest of communications, speak of this. In many places corduroy roads had to be constructed or the cannon would have sunk out of sight and beyond rescue, and many a faithful horse went down so deeply that he was stepped upon by others and smothered in the mire. When a company of soldiers moved every man chose his own path, hopping from one safe place to the next. Thus it took more time and endurance to cover one mile here than it would otherwise have taken to cover twenty. Before the troops had been out a day it was rumored that more bridges would have to be built across the Chickahominy, with long approaches of logs. The next morning the Goreville Volunteers were sent out to do a part of this work. “I didn’t enlist for a wood-chopper!” grumbled Jerry Rowe, as he joined the crowd at the river. “I’m not going to do any more of this work than I have to.”