on their heights and the plump Indian-pipes grew in peace in their
dark corners. The little white fort, too, began to assume its winter
manners; the storm-flag was hoisted; there were evening fires upon the
broad hearth-stones; the chaplain, having finished everything about
Balak, his seven altars and seven rams, was ready for chess-problems;
books and papers were ordered; stores laid in, and anxious inquiries
made as to the 'habits' of the new mail carrier--for the mail carrier
was the hero of the winter, and if his 'habits' led him to whiskey,
there was danger that our precious letters might be dropped all along
the northern curve of Lake Huron.

Upon this quiet matter-of-course preparation, suddenly, like a
thunderbolt from a clear sky, came orders to leave. The whole
garrison, officers and men, were ordered to Florida.

In a moment all was desolation. It was like being ordered into the
Valley of the Shadow of Death. Dense everglades, swamp-fevers, malaria
in the air, poisonous underbrush, and venomous reptiles and insects,
and now and then a wily unseen foe picking off the men, one by one, as
they painfully cut out roads through the thickets,--these were the
features of military life in Florida at that period. Men who would
have marched boldly to the cannon's mouth, officers who would have
headed a forlorn hope, shrank from the deadly swamps.

Families must be broken up, also; no women, no children, could go to
Florida. There were tears and the sound of sobbing in the little white
fort, as the poor wives, all young mothers, hastily packed their few
possessions to go back to their fathers' houses, fortunate if they had
fathers to receive them. The husbands went about in silence, too sad
for words. Archie kept up the best courage; but he was young, and had