A few raw-boned horses stood shivering under
the ice-covered trees, nibbling the short, scanty grass. Being in range
of the Federal guns from Fort Negley, we were not allowed to have fires
at night, and our thin and ragged blankets were but poor protection
against the cold, raw blasts of December weather--the coldest ever known.
The cold stars seem to twinkle with unusual brilliancy, and the pale moon
seems to be but one vast heap of frozen snow, which glimmers in the cold
gray sky, and the air gets colder by its coming; our breath, forming
in little rays, seems to make a thousand little coruscations that
scintillate in the cold frosty air. I can tell you nothing of what was
going on among the generals. But there we were, and that is all that
I can tell you. One morning about daylight our army began to move.
Our division was then on the extreme right wing, and then we were
transferred to the left wing. The battle had begun. We were continually
moving to our left. We would build little temporary breastworks, then
we would be moved to another place. Our lines kept on widening out, and
stretching further and further apart, until it was not more than a
skeleton of a skirmish line from one end to the other.
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