The climate was pleasant, the country beautiful, the water was clear as crystal, and game abounded.

In hard weather the troops lived on salt beef; but at other times their daily rations were two pounds of turkey or venison, or a pound and a half of bear meat or buffalo beef.

Yet this game was supplied by hired hunters, not by the soldiers themselves.

One of the officers wrote that he had to keep his troops practising steadily at a target, for they were incompetent to meet an enemy with the musket; they could not kill in a week enough game to last them a day.

[Footnote: State Dept.MSS., No.