Her amber locks she crowned with roses red
In Eden’s flowery gardens gathered new.”
And we resumed the march with blue noses and frosted beards. The wagons rumbled over the frozen ground as upon a rock; the horses shivered and shook more pitiably than their riders. There was unwonted courtesy amongst us. “Do try my mule a little while.” “No, I thank you; I could not think of depriving you of him this morning.” And then the owner, not to be outdone, would dismount, and run along behind his mule with much stamping of the feet and beating of the hands. Comparatively happy then were those wealthy individuals who owned gloves, or who wore something thicker than a summer blouse. Yet the biting air wrought its own cure among the foot passengers and gave them an exhilaration that beat down its benumbing pain; the thread-bare, ragged and half-naked crowd, shivering in summer clothing, uttered no whinings, but bravely pushed along, rejoicing that broken boots and tattered garments still held together, and wishing only that they could keep on against the north wind, till they reached the North. Less happy were the few who, seated in the old hack, rode glum and testy with upheaved shoulders and stiff necks, and mile after mile spoke never a word.
Thus, after seven hours’ steady marching, we turned from the road and went down into a little hollow where a small rill furnished us with water, and good large trees with firewood. Here the members of our mess, partly to make up for the previous night, and partly in the hope of attaining comfort, built a fire, which (among themselves) gave to the place the name of the “Camp of the Big Fire.”
We were first on the camping ground, and chose our tree, a dry oak more than two feet across the stump. Giving due notice to all that they had better stand from under, the commander of the “Sachem” swung a strong axe against it till it fell. The two largest logs were chopped off, each twelve or fourteen feet long. Skids were cut and laid, and every man, provided with a stiff handspike, lifted and strained till the largest log was raised, “cut round,” rolled, re-rolled and placed against its own stump as a brace. The skids were then hauled out and relaid; and the second log was brought opposite to the first. The skids were next made into an inclined plane, and we, by stout pushing, rolled the second log up this bridge until it rested on top of the first. We then had a solid wooden wall nearly five feet high. In front we placed huge andirons of logs as thick as a man’s body. On these we rolled smaller logs, and piled limbs and small wood until the whole sloped down from the top of the wall to a line six or seven feet distant from its base. We worked until the whole tree was in the pile. Then we set fire to it. It kindled slowly, but burnt gloriously. There was no rolling out of our blankets that night to put wood on the fire. We could feel our wooden wall throwing its rays down upon us as we lay before it on the frozen ground. It let no heat pass through, for while one side was a mass of red-hot embers the ice had not melted from the other. We slept until the bugle called us in the morning, and then found that a little rolling together of half-burnt logs and a slight shaking up of unfinished brands gave us a splendid fire to breakfast by.
Thus we went on, until upon the twelfth day of our march we passed through the little town of Tyler and approached Camp Ford. We felt some curiosity as to the appearance and comfort of this new abode. The question put to travellers whom we met always brought the reply that the prisoners were in houses quite comfortable. In houses prisoners might well be comfortable—much better to have houses than the dismal barracks of Camp Groce. At last the road wound round a little knoll, covered with pine and scraggly oak and disclosed the camp. We saw on a side-hill a barn-yard of a place, encompassed by a stockade fence fifteen feet high. Within, partly burrowed and partly built, was an irregular group of log shanties, small, dark and dirty. A naval friend stood at my side, who had been confident that we should find everything to our liking, and whose motto was “Nothing is too good for prisoners.” I glanced at him and saw that, since I last looked, his countenance had grown immeasurably longer. A lieutenant of my regiment was on the outside of the stockade waiting to welcome me. He was a young and neat New-Yorker when I last saw him, but his dress now consisted of a pair of ragged trowsers and an old woolen shirt without arms.
“What kind of times have you fallen upon, Mr. L?” I asked.
“Not very good, Colonel,” he replied, rather dolefully, and then brightening added, “But we have very good quarters—at least for prisoners!”
My naval friend looked at the lieutenant sternly and with disgust. He never forgave that speech.
The roll was called. We were marched forward. The gate opened and admitted us to seven months more of imprisonment. Within every thing looked gloomy and squalid. My own officers I hardly recognized; the others bore in their dress and mien the unmistakable marks of hardship and destitution. A Captain in my regiment came up, and after the usual greetings invited me into his “shebang” and to dinner. I walked in and looked around, I fear with some disgust. A dodger had just been turned out of its pan and cut up.