The
ride to camp was dismal. I continued to shiver with cold; my heart
grew heavy as lead, and yearned sadly for a sight of the pleasant
faces, the sound of the kindly voices, to which I had been so long
accustomed. At last a turn in the road brought us in sight of the
numberless fires of a large camp. It was a bright scene, though, far
from gay. The few men who crouched by the fires were not roistering,
rollicking soldiers, but pale shadows, holding their thin hands over
the blaze which scorched their faces, while their thinly-covered backs
were exposed to a cold so intense that it congealed the sap in the
farthest end of the log on which they sat. Driving in among these, up
an "avenue" bordered on either side by rows of white tents, the
ambulance drew up at last before the door of my "quarters,"--a rough
cabin built of logs. Through the open door streamed the cheery light
of a wood-fire, upon which pine knots had been freshly thrown.
A bunk at one side, made of puncheons, and filled with pine straw,
over which comforts and army-blankets had been thrown, hard pillows
stuffed with straw, having coarse, unbleached cases, a roughly-made
table before the fire, a lot of boxes marked "Q.
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