I dragged under my wagon a number of ox-yokes, and with these and some strips of boards I made a platform, and on this I laid a narrow pallet, and crept under the wagon, where I would be sheltered from the rain by the wagon-bed above me.

During the night there fell frequent showers, and the boys were soon drowned out from their pallets on the ground.

They were tired and sleepy; they were homesick and in bad temper at their mean and unaccustomed surroundings, and were inclined to hold the Yankees responsible for it all, and they began to curse and swear in rough and bitter speech.

Then there came on the most awful thunder storm I ever witnessed.

Vivid flashes of lightning kept the whole heavens illuminated with a blaze of light, while a thousand electric lights would not so have turned night into day around our corral of train-wagons.