The 24th was the period set for our stay at camp No. 3, which was pleasing intelligence to the whole army. On the 25th, at sunrise, we were commanded to march to the Rapids. Being the vanguard of the North-Western Army, General Harrison instructed us to make a stand there until we should be joined by the North-Western Army. For some time previous we had been engaged in making sleds to haul our baggage, some of which had to be drawn by the soldiers themselves.

A more pleasant and expeditious march than this had been anticipated, for after much fatigue and labor, a great number of canoes had been made, with which we expected our baggage would be taken with great ease and safety down the river; but to our great disappointment, before we could make preparations, or before our provisions reached us—without which we could not move—cold weather set in, and closed up the river. This circumstance at first seemed to present an obstacle insurmountable; many of the men were sick, and that sickness occasioned by being compelled to eat fresh pork without bread or salt, and from being exposed to cold and wet.

But this was not the only difficulty. Many who had not been so provident, perhaps, as the case required, were bare of clothes, and almost barefooted, and were ill prepared to undertake such a march through the snow.

Thus, ill clad, worn down by fatigue and starvation, and chilled by the cold wintry blasts of the north we were compelled to brave—there was no alternative—our condition made it necessary for us to fall upon some other plan to reach the Rapids, where we expected to meet supplies. Under the impulse of this hope we went to wor