it, "died as a fool dieth," causing his own death by his
folly. But, perhaps, if another man had been in his stead, he would have acted just as he did. "If I were you I would do so and so," is a very common expression, but a very improper one; if I were in your place, or were you, I should do just as you do.
Here we suffered again for eatables. We, generally speaking, had fared better for a year or two back, than we did in the first three or four years of the war; then all the care of procuring sustenence for the army was entrusted to the commissaries themselves; after our government had obtained loans of money from France and Holland, the money was put into the hands of contractors, who were accountable for the use they made of it, and of course, the contractors made the commissaries responsible for what they received of them. But somehow this winter, between the two stools, the poor soldiers often came to the ground. I lived half the winter upon tripe and cowheels, and the other half upon what I could get. We always had very short carnivals, but lengthy fasts. One evening, in the first part of this winter, there happened the most brilliant and remarkable exhibition of the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights, that I ever witnessed; the wind was in the same quarter and quite fresh.
We passed this winter as contentedly as we could, under the hope that the war was nearly over, and that hope buoyed us up under many difficulties which we should hardly have surmounted without its aid. But we were afraid to be too sanguine, for fear of being disappointed.
Some time in the latter part of the month of February, our officers were about to send off some men to Newburgh, ten or twelve miles up the river, to bring down some clothing. As the ice in the river had not broken up, (although it began to be thin and rotten,) several of the non-commissioned officers solicited the job for the sake of a frolic. We readily obtained permission, and seven or eight of us set off in the morning on the ice, with a large hand-sled to bring the clothing upon. About a mile and a half above West point there was a large rent in the ice, quite across the river, in some places not more than a foot or two wide, in others, eight or ten. We crossed this place very easily, and went on, when
