Fortified camp

“ Our camp, with two others consisting of Europeans and Fingoe Levies, was on a green level plain, between the fort and the River Chumie, beyond which rose a fine range of lofty mountains.
Anything more miserable in the shape of barrack accommodation than the officers' quarters in the fort can hardly be conceived; uneven floors of dried cow-dung, bending walls of "wattle and daub," smoke-blackened rafters and thatch, crazy doors, and ill-fitting windows, which exclude the light and admit in turn, wind, rain, and clouds of sand, are the characteristics of the best. ”

“ It is like the migration of ancient people in prehistoric times—the rise at dawn, the rifle shot to signal watch for the night is over, the tents and wagons pouring out the people to begin another day’s march, the women cooking breakfast over campfire, the men rounding up the stock! Forward scour the scouts to see that no danger besets the trail. Oxen are slowly hitched to the wagons forming a circular fort for the night camp; and these drag out in divisions of fifteen or twenty each. Young men on horseback flank the trail as out-guards and hunters. ”

“ For years the trails leading to their camp were marked by the bones of teamsters and broken wagons, and the trees were decked with the dying scalp-locks of women and children. The boldest of military leaders hesitated to attack them in their fortresses, and prudently left the scalping-knives, rifles, powder, and shot provided by a paternal government for their welfare lying on the ground a few miles from their encampment, with the request that they were not to be used until the military had safely retired. ”

“ A camp is a resting-place for the victor, a shelter for the vanquished. How many armies to whom the fortune of battle has proved unkindly have been driven inside their ramparts and then at their own time, sometimes almost immediately, have made a sortie and repulsed their victorious foe? Here is the soldier's second fatherland, here is his abode, with the rampart for its walls; here each finds in his tent, his home and his household gods. Ought we to have fought as homeless wanderers with no place to receive us after our victory? ”

“ From above in the spangled heavens the silver moon was shedding her softened beams upon the expiring camp fires; and along the range of hills, the bugle notes rang out, above the murmur of the camp, the order, "All lights out;" the signal for the wearied army to seek forgetfulness and repose in sleep.
Away to the left, from the burning village of Wagram flames ever and anon shot up, lighting the country round and casting a ruddy glow upon a tent pitched on a mound round which the French army was encamped. ”

“ Presently the horses are tied along the fences, riders are lounging under the trees, the kitchen-fires are lighted, guardsmen are scattered along the banks of the stream bathing, the wagons roll heavily over the prairie and are drawn up along the edge of the wood, tents are raised, tent-furniture is hastily arranged, and the camp looks as if it had been there a month. Before dark a regiment of infantry and two batteries of artillery come up. The men sleep in the open air without tents, and innumerable fires cover the hill-sides. ”

“ We tramp through the deepening snow of the great camp, which lines the slopes of the hills above the river and the town, visiting its huts and recreation-rooms, its Cinema theatre, and its stores, and taking tea with the Colonel of an Infantry Base Depot, who is to be our escort on the morrow.
But on the last morning before we start we mount to the plateau above the reinforcement camp, where the snow lies deep and the wind blows one of the sharpest blasts of the winter. Here are bodies of men going through some of the last refinements of drill before they start for the front ”

“ Day after day, and night after night, the one or other part of the camp is entertained by the edifying spectacle of natives being thrashed, tents being burnt, and white people surrounded by ferocious crowds who can scarcely be kept back from carrying out their desire for vengeance by a small truncheon and a thick thong. ”

“ Assuming the lodge—there was but one—as the centre of the camp, it was placed upon the edge of a small grove, and fronting the stream. From the tent to the water’s edge, the plain sloped gently downward, like the glacis of a fortification. The smooth sward, that covered the space between the trees and the water, was the ground of the camp. On this could be seen the dusky warriors, some afoot, standing in listless attitudes, or moving about; others reclining upon the grass, and still others bending over the fires, as if engaged in the preparation of their evening meal. ”

“ I exclaimed; for, about eight miles distant from the place we stood on, there exists to this day a stronghold such as he described, a camp so colossal in its scope, so ambitious in its scheme of ramparts, that it is scarcely credible as the achievement of a primitive people, toiling almost literally with their hands alone. ”

“ The guardsmen come up from their camp on the edge of the ravine, the negro-quarter is deserted, the wagoners flock in from the surrounding forest, the officers stroll out of their tents,—a picturesque crowd stands around the huge camp-fire. ”

“ The white tents crouching close to the shade of the pines, the parade alive with groups and colors as various as those of Joseph’s coat, arms stacked here and there, and occasionally the march of a double file in green, or in mazarine blue, up an alley from the interior of the wood, to be dismissed in the open camp, resembles a militia muster, or a holiday experiment at soldiering, rather than the dark shadow of forthcoming battle. The cordon of sentinels suffer no Volunteer to leave the precincts of the camp, even to bathe, without a pass or the word. ”

“ The position—an immense clearing in the centre of a pine-forest—is healthy. Nothing will be wanting: there is abundance of water, electric light will be installed, large windows will give light and air to the huts, the roofs will be thick and the walls made of bricks lined with wood.
Later, when the camp is on the point of being finished, the General who commands the district will let neutral notabilities and journalists visit it, and will present it to them as the future residence of those poor French prisoners over which Germany watches with a mother’s love. ”

“ Meantime the trappers left to guard the fort remained stationed within the wood all night, firmly believing they had their enemy "corraled," as the horsemen of the plains would say. On the return, in the morning, of their comrades from the main camp, they advanced cautiously up to the breastwork of logs, and behold! not a buffalo skin nor red blanket was to be seen! Through the crevices among the logs was seen an empty fort. ”

“ The camp had been pitched, after the usual rambling manner, in a broad grass park of sandy subsoil, below hills on which wandered the ponies in times of safety, or lurked the sentinels in time of danger. Above the lodges, like blazoned arms, were suspended the spears and shields of the warriors, and before the open flap of each the owner could be seen sprawled in dignified idleness among his favorite squaws. Children sat grave and silent near at hand, or whirled in mimic and noisy warfare farther out over the prairie. ”

“ Had we nothing which we could call our own except the bare ground on which to fight?' Your ancestors looked upon a camp as a safe haven for the army against every mischance, from which they went out to battle, where, after being tossed in the storm of battle, they could find a safe retreat. ”

“ From every camp fire now, from the shelter of puny huts and caves dug out of the earth, from wagons and tents, there appeared a stream of men and women, too, camp followers who mingled with the soldiery and cursed or entreated as the mood dictated. ”

“ Perhaps in the gray of early dawn they would return to the camp, the men tired, and almost frozen; but with glowing accounts of the immense damage they had managed to inflict on the concentration camps of the enemy. ”

“ At four o'clock in the morning the sentinels who were on guard waked the camp by shots from their rifles, the emigrants crept from their canvas-covered wagons or tents built against the side of the wagons, and soon the smoke of camp-fires began to rise in the air. Sixty men, whose duty it was to look after the cattle, would start out from the corral, or enclosed space, spreading through the horses and cattle, who had found pasturage over night in a great semicircle about the camp. ”

“ Besides these forts, which form a ring around Ingolstadt with a radius of about 7 kilometres, there is a camp for men on the outskirts of the town itself. As far as I know, all the forts except one, which is a strafe camp for N.C.O.'s who have attempted to escape, are used for officer prisoners-of-war. Fort 9, as we soon learnt, is the fort where the black sheep go. On our way to the men's camp we passed several working parties, mostly of French soldiers. ”

“ The natives must have crept up stealthily, and fired the abandoned camp in the expectation that the troops would have rushed down to extinguish the flames, and thus the fort and the divan would have been at the mercy of an attack from the dark side. ”

“ I have seen prints in shop windows of farms and soldiers, bits of country life and war mixed, a party of Lancers or Uhlans calling at some old homestead, watering their horses or bivouacking in the garden. Often what I see now makes me think of these subjects. A large camp is hideous and depressing; dirty and worn, the ground trampled deep in dust; filth and refuse lying about; the entrails and skins of animals, flies, beastly smells, and no excitement or animation. But these outlying scenes, scouts, pickets, &c., have a peculiar interest. ”

“ An internment camp is a distressing place under the most favourable circumstances, but who, except a German or a Turk, ever conceived of establishing one right in the field of battle? Let us suppose that the English and the French should assemble all their enemy aliens, march them to the front, and place them in a camp in No Man’s Land, directly in the fire of both armies. ”

“ A frontier mining camp, in the heart of savages, is a continuous scene of sunshine and storm, of joy and despair. Precaution must be the watchword of every individual, early and late; a careless step might betray them to the altar of cruel slaughter. The book-keeper had been appointed custodian of the fire arms, who, in a thoughtless way, or to satisfy his greed, bargained the ammunition to the Indians. ”

“ Early in the morning of Wednesday, the 12th of April, without the stirring drum or the bugle call of old, the camp awoke to the new life. Whether or not they had a country, these soldiers did not know. Home to many, when they reached it, was graves and ashes. At any rate, there must be, somewhere on earth, a better place than a muddy, smoky camp in a piece of scrubby pines;347 better company than gloomy, hungry comrades and inquisitive enemies, and something in the future more exciting, if not more hopeful, than nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. ”

“ A prettier spot could not have been found for the purpose; a small plateau, something over an acre in extent, where a charcoal-burner’s hut had once stood, lay right at the top of the pass. It was a little higher on either side than in the middle, where a small brook, along which the charcoal-burner’s track was yet visible, came down from the wooded mountain above, thus giving a natural crest to aid the fortification on either side, with open space for the guns, while the edge of the wood coming down from the mountain afforded shelter for the camp. ”

“ So far, twenty-two miles of road have been constructed through the forest, at a small expense to the county, by the prisoners. A stone crusher and a compression drill are parts of the equipment of the road building gang, which is under the charge of the master of the camp.
Flanked on three sides by mountain slopes and by a large meadow on the other, the camp is situated in an ideal spot. Thankful are the prisoners for the change from indoor confinement, and in token of appreciation they work as hard if not harder than men on the outside who enjoy their full liberty. ”

“ We then located a camp, got roasting-ears from a field to our right, an iron pot, and water at a house to our left, and in due time feasted, chatted, and retired for the night, not knowing how near we might be to enemies, or how far from friends. After midnight a terrible racket, to our front, awakened and frightened us. Imagining the commotion was produced by a dash of the enemy's cavalry, we arose in great haste, scattered our fire, gathered our traps, and hied us away to the brush. ”

“ For weeks they got no nearer to war than a hot, dirty, disorderly, unsanitary camp, where they were drilled from morning till night with aching shoulders and blistered feet, marched and countermarched under a broiling sun, eating hard-tack and sow-belly, and drinking water from foul ponds and muddy streams, and sleeping in fever-ridden swamps under rain that poured down upon them continually. ”

“ The place where they halted their wagon and prepared to spend the night was not more than a hundred yards from where our vehicles were arranged, in the usual hollow circle, with the camp-fire and the people inclosed.
When darkness set in, guards of our best men, armed with the most effective guns we had, were quietly distributed about the camp, the chosen men crawling on their hands and knees to their allotted positions, in order that the three strangers should not know our arrangements. ”

“ The flecks lay like snow upon the earth of the Wilderness.
“We’re tired of war on the old camp-ground
Many are dead and gone....
“We’re tenting to-night on the old camp-ground,...
Tenting to-night, tenting to-night.
Tenting to-night on the old camp-ground.” All the spirit of this army was graver than it had been a year ago, than it had been six months ago. During the past winter a strong religious fervour had swept it. This evening, in the Wilderness, in many a command there was prayer and singing of hymns. Swaths of earth, black copses of cedar and gum, divided one congregation from another. ”