gh coupled
with the knowledge that our lives were not entirely free from danger.

From Lebanon we pushed on to Springfield, through a keen, piercing
wind, that swept from the northwest with unremitting steadiness. The
night between those points was passed in a log-house with a single
room, where ourselves and the family of six persons were lodged. In
the bitter cold morning that followed, it was necessary to open the
door to give us sufficient light to take breakfast, as the house could
not boast of a window. The owner of the establishment said he had
lived there eighteen years, and found it very comfortable. He tilled a
small farm, and had earned sufficient money to purchase three slaves,
who dwelt in a similar cabin, close beside his own, but not joining
it. One of these slaves was cook and housemaid, and another found the
care of four children enough for her attention. The third was a man
upward of fifty years old, who acted as stable-keeper, and manager of
the out-door work of the establishment.

The situation of this landholder struck me as peculiar, though his
case was not a solitary one. A house of one room and with no window, a
similar house for his human property, and a stable rudely constructed
of small poles, with its sides offering as little protection against
the wind and storms as an ordinary fence, were the only buildings
he possessed. His furniture was in keeping with the buildings. Beds
without sheets, a table without a cloth, some of the plates of tin and
others of crockery--the former battered and the latter cracked--a less
number of knives and forks than there were persons to be supplied, tin
cups for drinking coffee, an old fruit-can for a sugar-bowl, and two
teaspoons for the use of a large family, formed the most noticeable
features. With such surroundings he had invested three thousand
dollars in negro property, and considered himself comfortably
situated.

Reaching Springfield, I found the army had passed on in pursuit of
Price, leaving only one brigade as a garrison. The quartermaster
of the Army of the Southwest had his office in one of the principal
buildings, and was busily engaged in superintending the forwarding
of supplies to the front. Every thing under his charge received his
personal attention, and there was no reason to suppose the army would
lack for subsistence, so long as he should remain to supply its wants.
Presenting him a letter of introduction, I received a most cordial
we