The Mud March
Since we’ve been talking about Civil War weather, I want to invite readers to revisit a talk Kris White and I did on the ECW YouTube page for the end of January about Ambrose Burnside’s ill-fated Mud March. Enjoy!
Since we’ve been talking about Civil War weather, I want to invite readers to revisit a talk Kris White and I did on the ECW YouTube page for the end of January about Ambrose Burnside’s ill-fated Mud March. Enjoy!
Love you guys. As you would say, I’m a big fan-boy. Mud and rain were vexing to soldiers on both sides. As the 124th New York volunteers marched north on June 19, 1863, the sultry hot day which cause choking dust clouds along the march on the dirt roads suddenly changed. With the dark descending, the temperature fell by thirty or forty degrees and a cold storm blew in, one soldier wrote. During the stifling march many soldiers had discarded their blankets and overcoats. As the men stumbled through the dark and rain into camp, Captain Charles H. Weygant of the 124th New York Infantry wrote: “Colonel [Van Horne] Ellis tumbled with his horse into a ditch, but fortunately escaped with no greater injury than an extra coating of Virginia mud.” His men were in a swampy meadow with the rain pouring down and gave a rather unique order, “Squat, my bullfrogs.”