It was a great hardship to the men to abandon the huts they had made with a good deal of labor, and which were the more necessary for them by reason of the destitution which I have described. Nor was it pleasant for us at headquarters, for we had got our own establishment into a condition of tolerable comfort. Some brick had been got from a ruined and abandoned house, and with them a chimney with an open fireplace had been built at the back of one of our tents, which thus made a cheerful sitting-room for our mess. It is a soldier's proverb that comfortable quarters are sure to bring marching orders, and we were only illustrating the rule. The march was made in the afternoon through rain and mud, and we reached Strawberry Plains just before nightfall in the short midwinter day. The Plains were a nearly level space in a curve of the river, though the village of the name was on some rough hills on the other bank at the end of the long trestle bridge. The level lands had been for some time occupied by the cavalry, and were so cut into mud-holes and defiled in every way as to be unfit for an infantry camp. A little on one side, however, was an isolated gently rounded hill covered with a mixed forest of oak and pine. With a little crowding this would make a clean and well-drained camp for the division I had brought with me. The brigades were placed so that they encircled the hill on the lower slopes with openings between leading to the top, on which I placed my headquarters. The little quadrangle of tents on the top, the forest-covered slopes, the busy soldiery below making new camps for themselves, made a romantic picture despite the discomforts. I cannot better show the impression made at the moment than by quoting from a letter written home the next day: "When we arrived, the rain was pouring in torrents, the dead leaves, wet and deep, soaked our boots and made it slow work to kindle a fire, and as we stood about in our overcoats heavy with water, we were not especially impressed with the romance of the scene; but when we had found a few old pine-knots to start the fire with, and the heavy smoke of the damp leaves changed to a bright flame,--when the tents were pitched, a cup of hot coffee made, and we sat about the fire watching the flashing light on the deep green of the pines and the beautiful russet of the oak leaves with the white of the tents beneath, the few square yards about us were made as lovely as a fairy scene shut in by the impenetrable gloom beyond. The old witchery of camp life now came over us, we forgot rain and cold, singing and chatting as merrily as if care were dead, till finally rolling in our blankets under our tents, we went to sleep as sweetly and soundly as children."