After our meal was disposed of, we held a council on the situation.
Though we had been sadly disappointed in not being exchanged, it seemed
that on the whole our condition had been bettered. This first ration was
a decided improvement on those of the Pemberton building; we had left the
snow and ice behind at Richmond--or rather at some place between Raleigh,
N. C., and Columbia, S. C.--and the air here, though chill, was not
nipping, but bracing. It looked as if we would have a plenty of wood for
shelter and fuel, it was certainly better to have sixteen acres to roam
over than the stiffing confines of a building; and, still better, it
seemed as if there would be plenty of opportunities to get beyond the
stockade, and attempt a journey through the woods to that blissful land
--"Our lines."

We settled down to make the best of things. A Rebel Sergeant came in
presently and arranged us in hundreds. We subdivided these into messes
of twenty-five, and began devising means for shelter. Nothing showed the
inborn capacity of the Northern soldier to take care of himself better
than the way in which we accomplished this with the rude materials at our
command. No ax, spade nor mattock was allowed us by the Rebels, who
treated us in regard to these the same as in respect to culinary vessels.
The only tools were a few pocket-knives, and perhaps half-a-dozen
hatchets which some infantrymen-principally members of the Third
Michigan--were allowed to retain. Yet, despite all these drawbacks, we
had quite a village of huts erected in a few days,--nearly enough, in
fact, to afford tolerable shelter for the whole five hundred of us
first-comers.

The wither and poles that grew in the swamp were bent into the shape of
the semi-circular bows that support the canvas covers of army wagons, and