fore they were relieved, and was ten miles from our quarters. Woodbridge also lay by the same waters. We likewise kept a quarter guard in every regiment at home, besides other small guards. Our duty all the winter and spring was thus—suppose I went upon the Woodbridge guard, I must march from the parade at eight o'clock in the morning, go a distance of ten miles and relieve the guard already there, which would commonly bring it to about twelve o'clock; stay there two days and two nights, then be relieved and take up the afternoon of that day to reach our quarters at Westfield,—where, as soon as I could get into my quarters, and, generally, before I could lay by my arms, warned for Elizabethtown the next day; thus it was the whole time we lay here, which was from the middle of February to the latter part of May following. It was Woodbridge and Elizabethtown, Elizabethtown and Woodbridge alternately, till I was absolutely sick of hearing the names mentioned.
And now I will relate some of the incidents and accidents that occurred during this very pleasant tour, that is, as far as I was concerned.
The first thing I shall mention is one that has so very seldom been heard of by the reader, that, it may be, he has forgotten it; I mean, we had next to nothing to eat. As I have just before observed, we had no wheat flour, all the bread stuff we got was Indian corn meal and Indian corn flour. Our Connecticut Yankees were as ignorant of making this meal or flour into bread, as a wild Indian would be of making pound cake; all we had any idea of doing with it was, to make it into hasty-pudding, and sometimes (though very rarely) we would chance to get a little milk, or, perhaps, a little cider, or some such thing to wash it down with; and when we could get nothing to qualify it, we ate it as it was. The Indian flour was much worse than the meal, being so fine it was as clamy as glue, and as insipid as starch. We were glad to get even this, for nothing else could be had; flesh meat was nearly as scarce as wheaten bread, we had but very little of the former, and not any of the latter; there was not the least thing to be obtained from the inhabitants, they being so near the enemy, and many of them seemed to be as poor as ourselves.
The guard kept at Woodbridge, being so small, and
