260 SEVENTH REGIMENT INFANTRY.

crossing the river to a point on Mountain Run, near Paoli Mills. This was another of
those dark, forced marches, leaving wagons behind and halting on the way to load.
One of the rumors was that Lee had crossed the Rapidan, and we were going to meet
him halfway. Sunrise dissipated these rumors, and the rest of the march was more
leisurely conducted, as though we had found out that all Lee wanted was to be "let
alone."

To compensate the men for their unprofitable investments in real estate, they
now walked into, and literally hung up their hats in, ready-made substantial log
cabins, well roofed with heavy oak slabs. For these accommodations, as well as for the
bunks and other trimmings, they were indebted to the kind forethought of unknown
friends in General Lee's army, probably some of the very men who afterwards received
the polite attentions of the regiment in helping them to Alexandria.

Culpeper C. H.

The day before Christmas the snug log cabins at Paoli were vacated, and the
1st corps again marched forth into the unknown. Crossing the railroad at Brandy Sta-
tion, we soon came in sight of our old friend Mount Pony, and, passing through Cul-
peper, Kenly's division bivouacked on a hillside a half mile or so south. After one or two
changes the Maryland brigade, on New Year's Day, 1864, finally settled down in winter
quarters upon the slope and crest of a ridge east of the railroad, between Culpeper and
Mount Pony, Colonel Phelps being, at this time, temporarily in command of the brigade,
now designated, by the consolidation of the other two brigades, 2d Brigade, 3d Division,
1st Army Corps.

For two or three months, or until the arrival of General Grant, the history of the
Army of the Potomac is one of mere drill and routine. Early in February there was
a cavalry reconnoissance across the Rapidan, and the whole first corps marched
down to Raccoon Ford in support. The detail of this movement was but a repetition of
previous experiences—the same picket firing in front, the same interesting prospect
of immediate battle, the same lying out in the rain and tramping back in the mud to
the same old quarters.

Army Routine.

The Seventh Regiment had long since found itself a comparatively insignificant
unit in a vast and complex organism. Tied in meshes of red tape, it was subject at
every turn to the innumerable minute and rigid exactions which could alone secure
the symmetry of the colossal system. It will be found suggestive to glance over the
musty files in some regimental headquarter's desk—that of the Seventh, for instance.
Here are, to begin with, orders—no end of orders; orders from the War Department,
from army headquarters, from corps headquarters, from division, brigade and regi-
mental headquarters; here are infinite reports, returns, requisitions, receipts, abstracts,
vouchers, blanks in duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate; here are applications "ap-
proved and respectfully forwarded," applications returned with disapproval and endorse-
ments of all sorts; here are details for courts-martial, courts of inquiry and military
commissions; here are endless details for guard, for picket, for police, for the pioneer
corps, for the ambulance corps, for the quartermasters', commissary and ordnance
departments, details as orderlies, guards and provost-guards at the several headquarters,