which stood a short distance to the right, perhaps seventy-five yards from the road. We filed across the intervening field and were taken to a low spot of ground within the wood, where instead of stacking arms we placed them butts upward, and with the bayonets thrust into the ground in order to keep the powder from becoming wet. The regiment was all in one line and was ordered to pitch tents, each man opposite his own musket, and within a certain limited number of feet from the row. It was a very unfavorable place for a camp as the ground in consequence of the heavy rain was almost in the condition of a swamp and the feet sank into the water at every step. We were already pretty thoroughly soaked, and on looking around I thought there was a prospect of our remaining so for some time. However, Rhodes, Landis and I who chanced to be together, selected a spot beneath a little hawthorn tree as a comparatively eligible location for our tent, one end of which could be fastened to a limb. While they buttoned the pieces together, I went to the fence to get a stake for the other end, and returning with it saw a number of men, coming from the lower portion of the wood with arms full of shingles.
Perceiving at once the advantage of having them for a floor, I left the stake at the tree and ran with all speed in the direction whence they were carried. The first thing I met was a creek which I cleared with a long spring and found a pile of shingles within a short distance of the bank. I lugged over one load, but before getting back with the second Landis had discovered a supply in some other quarter and they had enough already for two layers. The tent was up, but so loose that it swayed about; the shingles took up considerable of the small space inside, and our knapsacks half of the remainder; Landis was jammed in on one side with his back pressed
