We are rolling through Virginia into the sunset.

For twenty hours we have been crowded into these cars, and we are cramped and tired, but feeling happier with all. Two to a berth, we tried to sleep last night. But sleep was impossible. I was up most of the night, standing at the upper end of the car looking out the window, while my new-found bunkie tried hard to get in a few winks. He wasn’t successful.

At midnight we ran through a little station called Brandy, and there in a pounding rainstorm, under the light of a smoky, yellow oil lamp, stood a solitary soldierly-looking figure, a boy, bare-footed and with head uncovered and his rain-soaked cap held over his heart in a salute. He alone had been watching for the troop train.

Sometime after daylight, at Charlottesville, our train stopped for water. All signs of the rain had cleared, hundreds of boys, black and white, and men and women swarmed to the station to greet us. Our canteens were passed out of the windows for water, and hot coffee and thick sandwiches of home-made bread and jelly and delicious ham were given to us by a committee of very old women who had been up since long before daylight awaiting our arrival. Rations were served to us after we pulled out of the station, consisting of bread and hard crackers, and a can of tomatoes and a can of beans for every six men.

By way of diversion we began to play poker for the beans, and a pair of jacks left me breakfastless, except for the coffee and sandwich I was fortunate enough to get at Charlottesville. And that is all I have had since seven o’clock and it is now half-past four.

At one station along the line, where we laid over for a few moments, several fellows, acting as Sergeants, were sent out to buy food for our company. But the train pulled out without them. Goodness knows where they are now, but the saddest part of it is that they didn’t bring back the eats.