But to return to our camp at Elmira. Our duties were about the same thing every day; doing guard duty when it came our turn for detail, with the diversion of an occasional squad to the front. This began to be an old story to us, and we had to use our best endeavors to get up some little excitement to break the monotony of camp routine.
On the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 10th, orders were issued to our Regiment to move to Barracks No. 3, without delay. It was a rainy day, and all felt more like staying quietly in the barracks than like packing up and moving; yet go we must, and go we did. The last squad left at 8 o'clock in the evening. Tents, of which each Company had twelve, including one officer's wall tent, were pitched for the night, and all made themselves as comfortable as possible. In the morning, although it had ceased raining, it was very wet, and the nature of the ground made it very uncomfortable. We arranged our camp with a little more care, building a stockade of boards two feet high, on which we pitched each tent, and also making a floor on the bottom. Later in the season we provided each tent with either a camp-stove or fire-place, which made our quarters very comfortable, even in the severest weather.
We also built a cook-house capable of seating our entire Company, and furnished it with a good stove and such other apparatus as was necessary to carry on our culinary operations. We were indeed the envy of the entire Brigade, and it is undoubtedly true that by our own exertions we possessed the best _arrangement_ for promoting our own comfort of any Company on the ground. We were enabled by our advantages to provide all the variety possible with the rations served us. There was hardly a day but we were supplied with some delicacy by the kindness of our officers, that was not on the regular bill of fare. Indeed, our Table d'Hote gained such a notoriety, that in less than two weeks we had some of the staff officers as regular boarders, and our worthy Colonel considered it quite an honor when we gave him a standing invitation to partake of any meal with us when he did not see fit to go to his boarding house--an invitation that he often accepted and seemed quite to enjoy.