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Updated: June 28, 2025
During the day some shelter-tents were issued, which were gladly welcomed, as we had lain on the ground without any shelter for eight nights. On the evening of the 10th some rations came, and the cooks went to work and cooked during the night three days rations. In the meantime the men lived on the farmers near by.
For this they had contrived many devices, the favorite means being dugouts that is, pits dug in the ground, and roofed over, with shelter-tents, and having at one end a fire-place and chimney ingeniously constructed with sod.
My tent-mates had taken down our shelter-tents, and I had nothing to do but pack my knapsack, and all was ready. In some of the dismantled tents the fires still burned, casting their flickering rays upward through the air, while about them, sitting or lounging at ease, were men equipped for the stern work of war, ready to fall into line at the word of command.
And then there was an abundance of fire-wood at Wolf Creek; indeed, here and on Hackberry Creek where I intended to make my next camp was the only timber north of the Canadian River; and to select the halting places near a plentiful supply of wood was almost indispensable, for as the men were provided with only shelter-tents, good fires were needed in order to keep warm.
'Tain't servin' the Government right for him to be careless about himself. Now here's 27 rations o' bread, meat, coffee, sugar, salt and beans three apiece for each of us. Harry Joslyn, you and Gid Mack divide them up into nine equal piles." Si and Shorty turned to give directions about packing up the shelter-tents and blankets for carrying.
They were not half equipped, nor half fed, nor half cared for when they were wounded or sick; they had to sleep in dog-kennel shelter-tents, which afforded little or no protection from tropical rains; they had to cook in coffee-cups and old tomato-cans because they had no camp-kettles; they never had a change of underclothing after they landed; they were forced to drink brook-water that was full of disease-germs because they had no suitable vessels in which to boil it or keep it after it had been boiled; they lived a large part of the time on hard bread and bacon, without beans, rice, or any of the other articles which go to make up the full army ration; and when wounded they had to wait hours for surgical aid, and then, half dead from pain and exhaustion, they lay all night on the water-soaked ground, without shelter, blanket, pillow, food, or attendance.
But even if there had been some more escapes, it would be no argument in favor of the horrible system which was adopted. There is no resemblance between the situation of prisoners in a pen, and that of soldiers in bivouac. The latter build shelters of rails or of brushwood, if they have no shelter-tents, and they are very rarely stinted in firewood. Their active life helps to preserve their vigor.
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