cut logs into three or four foot lengths and split them
into slabs, and with these slabs, as a rough sort of shingle, covered
the roof and weighted them down, in place, with long, heavy logs laid
across each row of slabs. Then we mixed mud and stopped up the cracks in
the log walls. Altogether, we had a good, strong wind and rain-proof
building, which was an effective shelter for the horses and in which
they kept dry and comfortable through the winter--which was a cold and
stormy one. All the men worked hard, and we soon had the stable
finished, and the horses housed. Thus our building work was done, and
we settled into the regular routine of camp life.

=Camp Duties=

Perhaps a little sketch of our life in winter quarters, how we lived,
how we employed ourselves, and what we did to pass away the time, may be
interesting. I will try to give you some account of all that.

Of course, we all had our military duties to attend to regularly. The
drivers had to clean, feed, water, and exercise the horses, and keep the
stables in order. The "cannoneers" had to keep the guns clean, bright,
and ready for service any minute--also they had to stand guard at the
guns on the hill all the time, and over the camp, at night, to guard the
forage, and look after things generally. We had to drill some every
day--police the camp and keep the roads near the camp in order. To this
day's work we were called, every morning at six o'clock, by the bugler
blowing the reveille. I may mention the fact that Prof. Francis Nicholas
Crouch, the composer of the famous and beautiful song, "Kathleen
Mavourneen," was the bugler of our Battery, and he was the heartless
wretch who used to persecute us that way. To be waked up and hauled out
about day dawn on a cold, wet, dismal morning, and to have to hustle out
and stand shivering at roll call, was about the most exasperating item
of the soldier's life. The boys had a song very expressive of a
soldier's feelings when nestling in his warm blankets, he heard the
malicious bray of that bugle. It went like this:

"Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning;
Oh, how I'd like to remain in bed.
But the saddest blow of all is to hear the bugler call,
'You've got to get up, you've got to get up,
You've got to get up this morning!'

"Some day I'm going to murder that bugler;
Some day they're going to find him dead.
I'll amputate his reveille,
And stamp upon it heavily,
And spen