like advance for eighty-six miles up the crooked
course of the Dead River. Sometimes they cut their way through the
thickets and the underbrush, but oftener they waded along the banks.
Then came a heavy rainstorm, which grew into a hurricane during the
night. The river overflowed its banks for a mile or more on either
side. Many of the boats sank or were dashed to pieces. Barrels of
pork and of flour were swept away. For the next ten days, these
heroic men seemed to be pressing forward to a slow death by
starvation. Each man's ration was reduced to half a pint of flour a
day.

The old adage tells us that misfortunes never come singly. The rear
guard under Colonel Enos, with its trail hewn out for it, had carried
the bulk of the supplies; but, after losing most of the provisions in
the freshet, he refused any more flour for his half-starved comrades
at the front.

On October 25, the rear guard having caught up with Greene's
division, which was in the worst plight of all, encamped at a place
called Ledge Falls. At a council of war held in the midst of a
driving snowstorm, Enos himself voted at first to go forward; but
afterwards he decided to go back. So the rear guard, grudgingly
giving up two barrels of flour, turned their backs, and, {25} in
spite of the jeers and the threats of their comrades, started home.
Greene and his brave fellows showed no signs of faltering, but, as a
diary reads, "took each man his duds to his back, bid them adieu, and
marched on."

Just over the boundary between Maine and Canada there was a great
swamp. In this bog two companies lost their way, and waded knee-deep
in the mire for ten miles in endless circles. Reaching a little
hillock after dark, they stood up all night long to keep from
freezing. Each man was for himself in the struggle for life. The
strong dared not halt to help the weak for fear they too should
perish.

"Alas! alas!" writes one soldier, "these horrid spectacles! my heart
sickens at the recollection."

That each man might fully realize how little food was left, a final
division was made of the remaining provisions. Five pints of flour
were given to each man! This must last him for a hundred miles
through the pathless wilderness, a tramp of at least six days. In the
ashes of the camp fire, each man baked his flour, Indian fashion,
into five little cakes. Though the officers coaxed and threatened,
some of the poor frantic fellows ate all their cakes at one meal.

On