On a spring-like morning of January 1, 1862, the newly promoted Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson left Winchester on the Bath-Romney campaign, the opening step in an effort to restore Confederate control of western Virginia from Union forces. By Christmas 1861, a division of four brigades, including the Stonewall Brigade, had assembled in Winchester; about 2,000 men remained to defend the town while 9,000 began the expedition. Misled by the unusually warm weather and still inexperienced in campaigning, many soldiers loaded their blankets and jackets into the supply wagons as the march moved easily at first over level ground on the North Frederick Pike with high morale. John H. Grabill of the 33rd Virginia Volunteer Infantry recalled that although the roads worsened as the troops left Winchester, the men marched cheerfully in hopes of meeting the enemy. The supply wagons lagged far behind at a leisurely pace, and Quartermaster John Harman, recovering from tonsillitis in Winchester, was absent and could not press them forward. During the day the weather turned sharply colder as the wind shifted to the northwest and temperatures fell. Near sundown the column halted at Pughtown (Gainesboro) after about eight miles, and the soldiers took shelter from the wind in Pughtown Hollow, many without blankets or jackets and with food still miles behind on the wagons, leaving many without supper. The Stonewall Brigade then continued to Unger's Store over mountainous ground in blizzard-like conditions with the wagons still far to the rear. When the soldiers dug out of the snow on the morning of January 3, the wagons had finally caught up, but by then the men had gone thirty hours without food and had slept on frozen ground, some without blankets. These hardships foreshadowed the severe weather the Stonewall Brigade would continue to endure during the Bath-Romney Campaign. Private Peter Lauck Kurtz of Company A, Fifth Regiment of Virginia Infantry, was among those who endured the march to Romney; after surviving those conditions and the privations of Camp Mud, he entered a hospital on September 15, 1862, with an undisclosed illness, returned to service in October 1863, was captured at Fisher's Hill in September 1864, spent time in a quarantine hospital at Fort Columbus on Governor's Island in New York City, was exchanged in February or March 1865, and after the war returned to Winchester as a printer and a founder of the Winchester News.