are again in camp with
butter, eggs, cheese, and onions.

_July 31_ (Saturday). We remained in camp all day. No duty was required
of us and we enjoyed a good rest, a luxury we have had but once since
our start from Leavenworth.

_August 1_ (Sunday). We moved on this morning and encamped within a half
mile of Fort Bridger. The Fort, as it appears to us from our camp,
resembles an extensive camp more than a fort, and is not inappropriately
named "Camp Scott." It is situated very low in a fertile valley,
directly at the foot of the highest chain of the Rocky Mountains we
have yet seen, and watered by an intricate maze of mountain streams.

This is the termination of our outward journey. We are a hundred and
thirteen miles from Salt Lake City, and very eager to proceed--tormented
with impatience by the dilatory movements, continually anxious lest a
peace should be concluded before we reach Salt Lake. Day and night we
are absorbed with speculation as to whether we will proceed to join
General Johnston or receive orders to return to the East.

_August 2_ (Monday). A party of us visited the Fort. It is composed
mostly of tents of all shapes and sizes. Attempts have been made to
render them comfortable for the winter by covering them with two or
three thicknesses of canvas. In front is erected a substitute for a
piazza, consisting of a sort of entry or hall enclosed with wagon
covers, while in the rear is seen a huge stack of mud blocks, arranged
as though a fruitless effort was made to get them into some kind of
symmetrical form, probably to represent masonry. We inquired whether
these appendages were intended for ornament or use, and were informed
that they were chimneys. The garrison consists of three companies, one
of cavalry and two of infantry, which are now engaged in erecting four
log buildings to be occupied as quarters during the coming winter.

The fort proper is represented by a wall about twenty-five feet in
height and three feet thick, built of cobblestones, whitewashed inside
and out. Within stands the commissary and sutler's stores, together
with a confused mass of rude buildings, in the pig-pen style of
architecture. The stone wall is flanked by two well-built lunettes,
with a relief of about fourteen feet, the gabion and fascine work being
substantially made and placed. In the salient of one of the lunettes is
a small brass four-pounder, mounted in barbette upon a wooden platform.
The ditch is enclosed w