[Wednesday] Dec 3 [1862]

roused at reveille -- 6 A.M. breakfast sweet potatoes -- fried
ham toast coffee -- feel reinforced -- prayers before breakfast ---.
Camp in stir -- we take rear guard today -- hard job --
Yesterday 15th straggled & advanced so much that our boys
sd. there was a "telegraph line" of them reaching ^'from here' to Camp
Casey. Fairfax Sem -- It looks like rain -- We have had
fine weather & good roads only steep hills so far. Gen. Wright
is lame fr. being turned over -- & rides in Ambulance.
We do not march until 10 today to allow train supplies to
come up. Assisted in march of regt. Pretty good road --
not so hilly -- Abercrombie's brigade has a large baggage
train just behind -- us -- marched slow at first & two fast
at last -- but two stragglers fro. our regt. large numbers from
15th Connt. & other regts. men shot & skinned pigs, chickens
geese -- on march. They have 15th Conn. has used too much
whiskey & quinine, I reckon -- encamped at 5 1/2 in a
beautiful wooded slope -- oak oenings -- a bright
moonlight night. The band of 13 N.H. discoursed while
we were at Supper -- on roast chickens (those I brot. in fr.
Picket) potatoes & toast. Tis sd. one of Co. Iy [Connecticut Infantry] men is
crazy, left hospital & joined regt. he thinks Jeff Davis is
in his Knapsack -- & thrusts his bayonet into it at times
to kill him. We passed Piscataway a sleepy old village
early this morng. region thinly poulated & inhabitants
complain of depredations of yesterdays troops.
(I marched a foot with musket -- about 3 or 4 miles while
a tired soldier rode. At a halt the boys cut down a
persimmon tree & charged on it as it fell & left in
three seconds not one persimmon on it. I among them.
We are sd. to be about 6 miles fr. Port tobaca, if so marched
about 11 miles -- today -- most of it was done since
about 2 P.M. Some think we go to Acquia Creek &
join Burnside before Fredericksburg, others by transports
to fortress Monroe & so up &c.

General Horatio Gouverneur Wright (1820-1899)