further associating with them, or sharing in their sufferings or pleasures. I immediately went off with this (now my) Captain and the other men drafted from our brigade, and joined the corps in an old meetinghouse at the Peekskill. It was after dark when we arrived there. I had now got among a new set, who were, to a man, entire strangers to me; I had, of course, to form new acquaintances, but I was not long in doing that; I had a pretty free use of my tongue, and was sometimes apt to use it when there was no occasion for it. However, I soon found myself at home with them. We were all young men and therefore easy to get acquainted.
I found nothing more here for bellytimber than I had in the line, and got nothing to eat till the second day after I had joined the corps. I have heard it remarked by the old farmers, that when beasts are first transferred from one place to another, that if they keep them without food for two or three days, it will go far towards wonting them to their new situation. Perhaps it might be so thought by our commanders. Be that as it would, I got nothing, as I have said, till the second day I had been with them; we then drew, if I remember right, two days rations of our good old diet, salt shad, and as we had not, as yet, associated ourselves into regular messes, as is usual in the army, each man had his fish divided out by himself. We were on the green before the meetinghouse, and there were several cows feeding about the place, I went into the house to get something to put my fish into, or some other business, and staid longer than I intended, or rather ought to have done, for when I came out again, one of the cows was just finishing her meal on my shad, the last I saw of it was the tail of a fish sticking out of the side of her mouth. I was vexed enough to have eaten the weight of it off her carcass, but she took care of that, and I had another opportunity (if well improved) of mortifying my body by fasting two days longer; but I got something among the men, as poorly as they were off, to sustain nature till I could get more by some means or other. Such shifts were nothing strange to us.
This corps of Miners was reckoned an honourable one; it consisted of three companies. All the officers were required to be acquainted with the sciences, and it
