But there was a class of inhabitants in that same country to whom fate had been even more unkind than to those whom I saw. The lines of the northern army extended perhaps seven or eight miles from the Potomac, and the lines of the Confederate army were distant some four miles from those of their enemies. There was, therefore, an intervening space or strip of ground about four miles broad, which might be said to be no man's land. It was no man's land as to military possession, but it was still occupied by many of its old inhabitants. These people were not allowed to pass the lines either of one army or of the other; or if they did so pass they were not allowed to return to their homes. To these homes they were forced to cling, and there they remained. They had no market, no shops at which to make purchases even if they had money to buy; no customers with whom to deal even if they had produce to sell. They had their cows, if they could keep them from the Confederate soldiers, their pigs and their poultry; and on them they were living--a most forlorn life. Any advance made by either party must be over their homesteads. In the event of battle they would be in the midst of it; and in the meantime they could see no one, hear of nothing, go no whither beyond the limits of that miserable strip of ground!
The earth was hard with frost when I paid my visit to the camp, and the general appearance of things around my friend's quarters was on that account cheerful enough. It was the mud which made things sad and wretched. When the frost came it seemed as though the army had overcome one of its worst enemies. Unfortunately cold weather did not last long. I have been told in Washington that they rarely have had so open a season. Soon after my departure that terrible enemy, the mud, came back upon them, but during my stay the ground was hard and the weather very sharp. I slept in a tent, and managed to keep my body warm by an enormous overstructure of blankets and coats; but I could not keep my head warm. Throughout the night I had to go down, like a fish beneath the water, for protection, and come up for air at intervals, half-smothered. I had a stove in my tent, but the heat of that when lighted was more terrible than the severity of the frost.