"Our brigade, with our beloved and lamented General Bayard in command, was drawn up on a hillside preparatory to marching, and I assure you that the long lines and dense masses of cavalry made a splendid and imposing appearance. It was nearly night before we filed off towards Falmouth. The night was dark and misty and the roads broken and wild. Sometimes we would plunge down into a deep gully, at others scramble up the slippery and frozen sides of a steep hill. Every now and then horse and rider would be down, to the great merriment of all witnesses. But the joke became too serious when a horse fell and broke one poor fellow's leg. "Seen through the mist and darkness, the long extended column, winding among the broken hills, now coming out in bold relief on the brow of one of them, and then descending again into the valley or the gloom of some forest, had a shadowy and phantom-like appearance, and seemed more like a procession in a dream than a goodly number of well armed troopers on a march. Especially was this spectral effect heightened when a distant part of the column would pass within the lurid glare of some brilliant camp-fire. After floundering through streams and quagmires, and filing through gorges that reminded one of the old Indian ambuscades, we turned off into a forest to encamp for the night. Selecting a tree from under which the snow had partially melted away, a few of us built a fire, then spread our blankets and slept on the ground in the clear, frosty starlight as well as on the softest couch our limbs had ever pressed. Long before daylight, the bugle sounded 'boots and saddles,' and the woods soon resounded with the customary martial clamor of an encampment.