General Johnston was often seen riding along the lines, sitting his horse very erect, and presenting a soldierly appearance. He always reminded me of a gamecock trimmed and gaffed ready for the main. While here our first year of enlistment expired, and I entered upon the duties of first lieutenant; I had been orderly sergeant up to this time, carrying a musket. YORKTOWN LINES EVACUATED General Johnston, getting information that McClellan was preparing to send a force by transports up York River to West Point, and which he, Johnston, had no means of preventing, and thus get in his rear and between him and Richmond, it was determined to evacuate the Yorktown line of defense. Accordingly, about the 3d or 4th of May, 1862, the trenches were evacuated and the whole army began falling back up the Peninsula, the wagons and artillery in front. The Yankees made a landing at West Point, but were driven back to their transports by a force sent to meet them. As we marched up the Peninsula we could hear the booming of the big guns in this fight. The roads were in wretched condition, muddy and badly cut up by the long trains of wagons and artillery, making the march very trying and disagreeable, for it rained nearly every day about this time. No one who has not marched on foot behind army wagon and artillery trains has any conception of what muddy roads are. Horses and mules were sometimes literally buried in the mud and left to perish, or shot dead on the spot. It is surprising how much fatigue and hardship men can stand when put to it. Soldiers were often put to the supreme test of endurance, and, no doubt, many an old Confederate soldier often says to himself, "How did we stand those long, tiresome marches, through the rain and mud of spring, through the dust and heat of summer, and midst snow and ice of winter, often poorly shod, scantily clothed, and on short, very short rations, sometimes none at all." A man can stand more than a horse. But the Confederate soldiers did stand these things, enduring more, perhaps, than any soldiers ever endured before. It took men to do these things— men with muscles, sinews, and nerves in their bodies, and courage in their hearts; and then, on the battlefield, to meet the foe two, three, and four to one, and vanquish that foe, took men of the highest valor. Of such was the Confederate soldier. The service of our Revolutionary fathers was not comparable to the arduous trials and privations of the Confederate soldiers. The privations and suffering of the army at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78 was as nothing to the experiences of the Confederates around Petersburg during the winter of 1864-5.