March 18th.—Marched at sunrise through Greenville to camp near Brownsburg, and the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren campaign is ended; the Yankee nation is indelibly disgraced by the objects of the expedition, and Stuart’s laurels wilted by his failure to annihilate the whole party.
On the 31st of March the battalion moved its camp, passing Lexington and halting at a superb place for a camp about eight miles from the Natural Bridge, and now the men prepared for winter quarters at last, when the winter was almost over, but as they were always hungry it may well be imagined that their enjoyment was limited. The ration was reduced, by Gen. Lee’s order, to a quarter of a pound of meat and one pound of meal per day, and this _always_ fell short by our Quartermaster’s scales; nor did the horses fare better, for with no hay at all they only got seven ears of corn a day; and the Southern soldiers often seriously doubted if the Revolutionary Fathers could show a record of greater privations than they endured. If the old Continentals were often without shoes many a barefoot Confederate could say “so am I;” and if the Continentals often suffered for food, the Confederates could point to many harassing scenes when, as Captain Grubb said of Brandy Station, “they fought all day before breakfast and went on picket all night before supper;” and although there were often heard complaints bitter and loud from the poorly-clad, ill-fed, and bad-sheltered soldiers of Dixie, it is doubtful if the Continentals themselves in their dark hours evinced greater fortitude, endurance, and devotion, than they; and the history of the war that _shall_ be written fairly when the clouds of prejudice and passion, that now hide the fame of the Confederates, have blown away, will show before God and the true world a picture of unselfish patriotism as bright as ever crowned victory with glory or lighted the gloom of defeat with honor, but such thoughts as these have no true place in this history, and only show that the clouds are still unbroken.
The month of April, 1864, was passed very pleasantly, notwithstanding the privations that naturally fall to the lot of men who support an impoverished cause; and when, on the 27th, the baggage accumulated during the winter was stored away at Waynesborough, the soldiers felt that in the approaching campaign the question of independence or subjection would be decided, and they prepared for it with hopeful hearts, for they believed their cause was just, and their faith in Gen. Lee was unbounded.