That night we stopped at Sussex Court House, the finest we seen in Virginia. There were some men and a lady there that gave us wrong directions but we caught them at it and gave the men a drumhead court martial and hung them and brought the lady along to our side. We burned the courthouse down. Marched to the river where the pontoon bridge had been laid and a group from the 9^th Corps came in to relieve us. The roads were regular mortar beds; frequently the horses would stick in it and the only thing you could do was to shoot them and go on. But in the evening it was so cold the horses would break thru the crust and break their legs - then, by midnight, it froze so hard that an artillery piece with six horses could gallop over it.

I was detailed on a burning expedition. We burned a strip five miles by five miles. Just gave the family notice to get out and then set fire to the buildings. They had no time to save anything. Often wondered what ever became of those poor people that cold night. The reason it was done was so the Rebs would have no place to harbor. I was nearly froze that night when we got to camp as our blankets had been wet and were frozen together so hard we could not get them apart. But our quarters kept the wind away from us and we had a little wood that was left. We soon had a fire and laid and rested our tired bodies. This was also called the applejack raid, as most of the planters had applejack or peach brandy or both in their cellars.

The cavalry was in advance so they got to the house first. Sometimes we had a chance to get some and sometimes not, as the provost guard was always close on our heels. They gave orders to destroy all liquor founding the cellars or anywhere else. I suppose over half of the detail was drunk and wonder what would have happened if we would have been attacked. I had several drinks and so did most of the cavalrymen that drank. I had been detailed to scout with Captain Boyd in command and we got into a place toward evening where there was considerable of the stuff. Most of us filled our canteens and there was a keg of brandy there, which I reckon held between five and six gallons. He said we would take this along for the boys back at camp. So they gave it to me and with my poor hand I didn't get it very far till a yell," Halt there and drop that keg." I said I had it under captain's orders and I didn't intend to drop it. Then a Provost Marshal rode up and dismounted and with his little George Washington hatchet he gave a heavy rap and soon the brandy that was in the keg was on the ground. The infantry gave us a lot of mischief as they were always too late for the applejack and every time they saw us they would yell "Applejack" and some would crow like roosters.

After we got back to camp, we got on the same old routine again for some time. After a while, we started down to Dinwiddie Courthouse. We did a little scouting and fighting there. Then we came back to fight the twenty-third battle of Hatcher Run. We had been real busy for several days and had been riding all night; you might say we were dead o our horses. It had rained the day before and got real cold that night. When we got to the infantry it was just the break of day. It was then I seen that we were not the only ones subjected to the miscomforts of the war. There they laid in the mud and their blankets covered with snow. One longhaired old fellow had his knapsack for his pillow and his hair hung down over the side into the mud and froze while he slept, so they had to chop him loose before he could get up.

One night we lay where two rivers come together at a point. We got there after night and were not allowed to take anything off our horses, so we laid down beside them with a strap in our hands to hold them so we could mount in a hurry and skedaddle if the Rebs came. It rained and snowed all night and when daylight came we began to fall back. With all the rain, the river got much higher than when we crossed it, so they built a pontoon bridge of wood for us to cross over on. When we got over, they chipped the bridge loose and it went down with the high water. Then we heard the Rebs shooting. They were shooting at about eighty of our men in the woods, and this was unbeknown to us when we cut the bridge loose. They could not cross over and the Rebs got every last one of them.

Later, we dismounted and sent the horses back and scattered along the swamp. There was a high railroad embankment there and me and George Stahl were sent to the other side to watch for Johnnies. We stayed for about two hours and the firing had ceased, so we climbed back over the embankment and we found all our men gone and it was full of Rebs marching up towards the woods. We ran about two Virginia miles till we caught up with some of our dismounted men. They were cutting down some trees to put across the road to barricade it. We stayed there a while and helped them and then, real tired boys, we made it back to our horses and it was the last we saw of the Rebs on that trip. We were so tired from our long run but were happy the Rebs didn't have two more prisoners.