By February, 1862, we had learned the trade of war tolerably well, and were rich in ‘wrinkles’; for no teacher is so thorough as necessity. We were no longer harrowed by the scarcity of comforts, and the climate, with its fickleness and inclemency, we proudly disregarded. Whether it rained, sleeted, or snowed, or the keen frost bit through to the marrow, mattered as little to us as it did to the military geniuses who expected raw soldiers to thrive on this Spartan training. To perfect content with our lot we could not hope to attain, so long as we retained each our spiritual individualities, and remembered what we had enjoyed in times gone-by; but, after a course of due seasoning, the worst ills only provoked a temporary ill-humour; while our susceptibility to fun so sweetened our life that there was scarcely anything in our lives but conduced to a laugh and prompted a jest. The fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, on the 6th and 16th February, 1862, required our instant evacuation of Cave City and Bowling Green, to Nashville, lest we should be cut off by the Union advance up the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, behind us. We were therefore obliged to march through the snow to the rear of Bowling Green, where we were packed into the cars and speedily taken to Nashville, arriving there on the 20th February. Thence, after a couple of days, we were marched towards the South, viâ Murfreesboro, Tullahoma, Athens, and Decatur, a march of two hundred and fifty miles. At the latter place we took the cars again, and were transported to Corinth, where we arrived on the 25th March. Here it leaked out that a surprise was intended against our army, by the conqueror of Donelson, who had landed from the Tennessee River near Shiloh, some twenty-four miles away from us. Brigades and regiments were daily arriving, belonging to the divisions of Generals Clark, Cheatham, Bragg, Withers, and Breckenridge, which were finally formed into three army corps, under the inspection commands of Polk, Braxton, Bragg, and Hardee, and were now united under the commands of Generals Albert Sidney Johnston, and P. G. T. Beauregard. CHAPTER VIII SHILOH On April 2, 1862, we received orders to prepare three days’ cooked rations. Through some misunderstanding, we did not set out until the 4th; and, on the morning of that day, the 6th Arkansas Regiment of Hindman’s brigade, Hardee’s corps, marched from Corinth to take part in one of the bloodiest battles of the West. We left our knapsacks and tents behind us. After two days of marching, and two nights of bivouacking and living on cold rations, our spirits were not so buoyant at dawn of Sunday, the 6th April, as they ought to have been for the serious task before us. Many wished, like myself, that we had not been required to undergo this discomfort before being precipitated into the midst of a great battle.