Blain's Cross-roads--Hanson's headquarters--A hearty welcome--Establishing field quarters--Tents and houses--A good quartermaster--Headquarters' business--Soldiers' camps--Want of clothing and shoes--The rations--Running the country mills--Condition of horses and mules--Visit to Opdycke's camp--A Christmas dinner--Veteran enlistments--Patriotic spirit--Detachment at Strawberry Plains--Concentration of corps there--Camp on a knoll-A night scene-Climate of the valley--Affair at Mossy Creek--New Year's blizzard--Pitiful condition of the troops--Patience and courage--Zero weather. The Twenty-third Corps was encamped at Blain's Cross-roads, seventeen miles northeast of Knoxville, on the road to Rutledge, where Longstreet was supposed to be. The Fourth Corps, under General Granger, and the Ninth, under General Parke, were in the same neighborhood. The cavalry corps covered the front and flanks on both sides of Holston River. A concentration of the Army of the Ohio and its reinforcements had been made there to meet a rumored return of the Confederates toward Knoxville after an affair at Rutledge in which Longstreet had captured a wagon-train loaded with supplies for us. I left Knoxville on the morning of the 21st of December, accompanied by my staff officers, and rode to Blain's Cross-roads. I found the corps under temporary command of Brigadier-General Mahlon D. Manson, of Indiana, who had commanded one of the divisions in the preceding campaign. Manson occupied an old log house too small for himself and staff. There was but one bed in it, and at night the general occupied this, whilst his staff slept in their blankets on the floor. We had travelled leisurely, as I wished to study the country between Knoxville and the camp, and we reached the corps too late to make any arrangement for the night, and had to cast ourselves on our comrades' hospitality. I was most heartily welcomed by General Manson, who did the best he could for me by offering me the half of his own bed, whilst the staff took similar lodgings with his officers in a shed veranda at the back of the house lying snugly together, wrapped in their blankets. Manson was a burly, whole-souled man, brave and loyally unselfish, and turned over the command to me with a sincerity of subordination which won my confidence at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 462, 463.] It was not a comfortable night in the overcrowded log house for either hosts or guests, but it was made cheery by the hearty soldiers' welcome we received, and we sat late around the crackling fire in the stone chimney after we had eaten with a relish, known only in camp, the best supper which the meagre rations of the army could furnish.