Sunday, April 17th.
The churches in these parts being “closed for repairs,” or the clergymen being on their vacations, we were compelled to spend the day in camp, and “works of necessity and mercy” being always in order, and the materials having arrived, with the assistance of my men Lynch and Joe Solomon, who for gallant and meritorious services as “beats,” have long since been promoted from the ranks to the position of Acting Assistant Adjutant Generals at my Headquarters, I completed my mansion at the head of the company street. This imposing structure, calculated to furnish accommodations for Lieut. Edmonston and myself, is built to the height of about three feet, of poles laid up after the manner of the cob houses of my boyhood, and is covered with canvas sustained by a ridge pole about five feet from the ground. Its dimensions are six feet by ten, it being constructed on the sound architectural principal that “man wants but little here below but wants that little” longer than it is broad, and though some maliciously inclined individual might at first profanely take it for a third-rate hog pen, yet the massive chimney of two headless barrels and a cracker box, pointing heavenward from one corner, would soon dispel the possible illusion, and suggest the more pleasing and Christian idea of a little modern church, with its lofty gable and castellated tower. The internal arrangements are all made with the strictest reference to economical utility. The farther end is occupied by the inevitable “bunk” of poles, whereon by strictly conforming the wearied form to Hogarth’s line of beauty, a moderate share of sleep and rest may be enjoyed, particularly if the various joints and angles of the said form are judiciously disposed with due reference to the interstices between the poles. Under the bed is a spacious closet used as a general storeroom for old muskets and the various odds and ends of surplus and decayed “camp and garrison equipage.” A single board propped against the poles and supporting an inkstand, graces the western wall, and the modest but handsome furniture of the apartment is completed by an empty cracker box, which performs the various offices of table, desk, chair, buffet, commode or candlestick, as “the exigencies of the service” may require.
