swelled by boiling as to be beyond the danger of swelling in the stomach, it was deposited there without ceremony.
After this, we sometimes got a little beef, but no bread; we, however, once in a while got a little rice, but as to flour or bread, I do not recollect that I saw a morsel of either (I mean wheaten) during the winter, all the bread kind we had was Indian meal.
We continued here, starving and freezing, until, I think, some time in the month of February, when the two Connecticut Brigades were ordered to the lines near Staten Island. The small parties from the army which had been sent to the lines, were often surprised and taken by the enemy or cut to pieces by them. These circumstances, it seems, determined the Commander-in-chief to have a sufficient number of troops there to withstand the enemy even should they come in considerable force. And now a long continuance of our hardships appeared unavoidable. The first brigade took up its quarters in a village called Westfield, and the second in another called Springfield;—we were put into the houses with the inhabitants. A fine addition we were, doubtless, to their families, but as we were so plentifully furnished with necessaries, especially in the article of food, we could not be burdensome to them, as will soon appear.
I think it necessary before I proceed further, to prevent much repetition, to give some information of the nature and kind of duty we had to perform while here, that the reader may form a clearer idea of the hardships we had to encounter in the discharge of it. Well, then, I shall speak only of the first brigade, as I belonged to that; as to the second, I know no more of it, than that those who belonged to it doubtless had as hard duty and hard times as we had in the first. I say, as I belonged to the first brigade, I shall endeavour to describe some of the hardships and troubles we had to contend with.
We were stationed about six miles from Elizabethtown, which is situated near the waters which separate Staten Island from the main. We had to send a detachment to this place which continued on duty there several days, it consisted of about two hundred men, and had to form several guards while there. We had another guard, which consisted of about one hundred men, at a place called Woodbridge; this guard staid there two days be-
