ther, and draw for which one of the mess should
have it all--with the condition, that the winner should make a pot of
coffee, and drink it, and let the rest of us see him do it. This was
done. Ben Lambert won--made the pot of coffee--sat on the ground, with
us twelve, like a coroner's jury, sitting around watching him, and drank
every drop. How he could do it, under the gaze of twelve hungry men, who
had no coffee, it is hard to see, but Ben was capable of very difficult
feats. He drank that pot of coffee--all the same!

After this, there was no more issue of coffee. Even a Commissary began
to be dimly conscious that nine grains given a man for a three days'
rations was like joking with a serious subject, so they quit it, and
during that winter we had mostly just bread and meat--very little of
that, and that little not to be counted on.

This hunger was much the hardest trial we had to bear. We didn't much
mind getting wet and cold; working hard, standing guard at night; and
fighting when required--we were seasoned to all that--but you don't
season to hunger. Going along all day with a gnawing at your insides, of
which you were always conscious, was not pleasant. We had more appetite
than anything else, and never got enough to satisfy it--even for a time.

Under this very strict regime, eating was like to become a lost art and
our digestive organs had very little to do. We had very little use for
them, in these days. A story went around the camp to this effect: One of
the men got sick--said he had a pain in his stomach and sent for the
surgeon. The doctor, trying to find the trouble, felt the patient's
abdomen, and punched it, here and there. After a while he felt a hard
lump, which ought not to be there. The doctor wondered what it could
be--then feeling about, he found another hard lump, and then another,
and another. Then the doctor was perfectly mystified by all those hard
places in a man's insides. At last, the explanation came to him: he was
feeling the vertebrae of the fellow's back-bone--right through his
stomach!

I do not vouch for the exact accuracy of all the details of the story,
but it illustrates the situation. We all felt that our stomachs had
dwindled away for want of use and exercise.

=A Fresh Egg=

Another incident, that I can vouch for, showing the strenuous time the
whole army had about food that winter: One day Major-Quartermaster John
Ludlow, of Norfolk, met a Captain of Artillery from his