It was more than two hundred miles to our lines, and winter was just beginning.

One after another fell ill and died, or was left with Union people along the way.

Only four of the party reached our army at Rolla.

Two of these died a few days after their arrival, leaving only a young child and its grandfather.

At St.
Louis the survivors were kindly cared for, but the grief at leaving home, the hardships of the winter journey, and their destitution among strangers, had so worn upon them that they soon followed the other members of their family.
There have been thousands of cases nearly parallel to the above.