Journal of Surgeon Alfred L. Castleman.

3rd.–This morning the men looked haggard and worn. Some slept; more shivered with cold the night through, and in my morning round to look after the health of the regiment, I found men standing upright, without any support, and fast asleep. There was no wood within half a mile of us to make fires. Not a step could be taken without sinking to the ankles in mud and water; and thus opened the day of the 3d of July. All felt depressed, but there was little or no murmuring. What a wonderful army! And yet it has been a whole year in the field and has accomplished nothing. Who is to blame? We are in a bow of the James River, with the enemy in our front. We can retreat no further, and when, early in the morning, a few vollies of musketry were heard, all felt that the trying time had come, and that the death struggle must be had to-day. We were mistaken. After the few vollies, the firing ceased, and all has been comparatively quiet. The thirst had been quenched, and the flow of blood, at least for the day, is checked. To-morrow will be the Fourth of July, and the calm of the 3d portends that this Fourth is to be a day of travail, and, perhaps, the birth-day of another nation.