OUR coming here was most unexpected and very unpleasant in every way.
General Phillips and Major Barker quarreled over something, and Major
Barker preferred charges against the general, who is his company
commander, and now General Phillips is being tried here by general
court martial. Faye and I were summoned as witnesses by Major Barker,
just because we heard a few words that were said in front of our
window late one night! The court has thoughtfully excused me from
going into the court room, as I could only corroborate Faye's
testimony. I am so relieved, for it would have been a terrible ordeal
to have gone in that room where all those officers are sitting, in
full-dress uniform, too, and General Phillips with them. I would have
been too frightened to have remembered one thing, or to have known
whether I was telling the truth or not.

General Dickinson and Ben dark, his interpreter, came up in the
ambulance with us, and the poor general is now quite ill, the result
of an ice bath in the Arkansas River! When we started to come across
on the ice here at the ford, the mule leaders broke through and fell
down on the river bottom, and being mules, not only refused to get up,
but insisted upon keeping their noses under the water. The wheelers
broke through, too, but had the good sense to stand on their feet, but
they gave the ambulance such a hard jerk that the front wheels broke
off more ice and went down to the river bottom, also. By the time all
this had occurred, I was the only one left inside, and found myself
very busy trying to keep myself from slipping down under the front
seat, where water had already come in. General Dickinson and Faye were
doing everything possible to assist the men.

Just how it was accomplished would make too long a story to tell, but
in a short time the leaders were dragged out and on their feet, and