the beginning of October, and
remained in winter quarters until the spring of 1865.

Shortly after our return to Arkansas I assumed command of the First
Brigade, First Division, Seventh army corps. This brigade consisted of
my own regiment, the Twelfth Michigan, the Sixty-first Illinois, and a
United States colored regiment. Our prospects for remaining in winter
quarters for several months being favorable, many of the higher officers
sent for their wives. I did the same, having first erected a comfortable
log house for us. My wife and two little children arrived a few days
before Christmas, and stayed in the camp the whole winter. No important
event took place during the winter, excepting that we were once ordered
to make an expedition up White river, with a considerable force of
cavalry and infantry, and, after a fatiguing march, succeeded in
breaking up a camp of irregular Confederate troops, and taking many
prisoners.

I will relate two incidents which took place near Duvall's Bluff, one of
a serious, the other of a comic nature.

The first was the shooting of a young soldier of the Twenty-second Ohio
regiment, who time and again had deserted his post, and finally joined a
band of rebel marauders. It became my sad duty to execute the sentence
of death. My brigade formed a hollow square, facing inward, and the
doomed man, a strong, handsome youth of twenty years, sat on a coffin in
an open ambulance, which was driven slowly along the inside of the
square, while a band marched in front of the wagon playing a funeral
march. After the completion of this sad march the deserter was placed in
the middle of the square, in front of the coffin, with his eyes
blind-folded. A detachment of twelve men under a sergeant now fired
simultaneously, upon the signal of the provost marshal. Eight rifles
were loaded with balls, and the unfortunate young man fell backwards
into his coffin and died without a struggle.

[Illustration: SHOOTING A DESERTER.]

One day while taking a ride on horseback in company with my wife, who
had a fine saddle horse, and had become an expert rider during her long
stay in the camp, we galloped mile after mile along the fine plain,
outside of the picket-lines where men of my own brigade were on guard,
till at last we found ourselves several miles from the place where we
had passed through our lines. Returning toward camp, we struck the
picket line at a point where a recently arrived regiment was statione