It was a welcome day-dawn to us. For two hours I had stood guard over Collins, watching the stars mirrored on the smooth waters about our feet, and it was a glorious sunrise to us that chased the shadows and images away, and flooded our gloomy retreat with the light of morning. Again we started onward, taking the sun for our guide. The water grew gradually more and more shallow, and the brushwood thicker. Berries became scarcer, and our sufferings from hunger increased with every step. We were that day wandering weary, foot-sore, and heart-heavy, where in all probability, human foot had never trod before:
“In the dark fens of the dismal swamp,
The hunted Yankees lay;
We saw the fire of the midnight camp,
And heard at times the horses’ tramp
And the bloodhounds’ distant bay.
“Where hardly a human foot would pass,
Or a human heart would dare,
On the quickening turf of the green morass,
We crouched in the thick and tangled grass,