Deposition of Frederick Wünsch, 26 Nov 1886, describing his injury incurred at the Battle of Fredericksburg

I incurred my second disability at the second battle of Fredericksburg, about December 1862. My regiment was deployed in pursuit of the enemy as skirmishers. Possibly it was only my company. We were compelled to take refuge in a ditch that was nearly knee-deep with freezing water. I must have stood in that water about seven hours, and lay around an hour after we were relieved, in wet feet. Indeed we lay out in the field all that night without any fire or food. Three or four days afterwards I was attacked with the rheumatism, while we were at Falmouth. I felt it first in my shoulders, and in my legs below the knees. I felt it more or less all that winter.