The month of April ran on with continued activity of reconnoitring parties, but no larger movements. The spring was unusually backward. There was a flurry of snow on the 16th, but it did not lie on the ground, and about the 20th lovely spring weather began in earnest. The best evidence we had that our lines of communication were getting in more efficient condition, was the arrival of an agent of the Sanitary Commission with a large shipment of fresh vegetables for gratuitous distribution. We were sorely in need of them. There was a good deal of incipient scurvy in camp, and scarce any one was wholly free from disorders caused by too restricted diet. Our regular rations were bacon and flour, varied occasionally by a small issue of dried white beans or rice. This was nutritious enough, but after some months' steady use, nature pretty imperatively demanded a change. The noble organization of the Commission had been watching for the opportunity, and the arrival of a generous supply of potatoes, onions, and pickled cabbage made feast days for everybody from the general down. At my headquarters we had been confined to the soldiers' rations, and it was impossible to get anything else. The only ferment to raise our bread was saleratus, and we had become very tired of saleratus biscuit. No luxuries ever tasted so well as these plain vegetables. Our physical condition craved them, and they were food and medicine at once. The sauerkraut was finely shaved cabbage laid down in brine, and a steaming platter of it made the _pièce de résistance_ of our camp dinner as long as it lasted. The onions we sliced and ate raw with a dressing of vinegar. The gusto with which we enjoyed this change of diet remains a vivid remembrance after a quarter of a century, and is the best proof of our need of it. The health of the whole camp was restored, and we were "hard as nails" during the year of rough campaigning that was to follow.