Shortly after both sides went into winter quarters, and both sides commenced building. We launched a ship called the Madison, about this time, and we laid the keel of another, that was named the Pike. What John Bull was about is more than I can say, though the next season showed he had not been idle. The navigation did not absolutely close, notwithstanding, until December. Our vessels were moored about the harbour, and we were all frozen in, as a matter of course. Around each craft, however, a space was kept cut, to form a sort of ditch, in order to prevent being boarded. Parties were regularly stationed to defend the Madison, and, in the days, we worked at her rigging, and at that of the Pike, in gangs. Our larboard guns were landed, and placed in a block-house, while the starboard were kept mounted. My station was that of captain of one of the guns that remained. The winter lasted more than four months, and we made good times of it. We often went after wood, and occasionally we knocked over a deer. We had a target out on the lake, and this we practised on, making ourselves rather expert cannoneers. Now and then they rowsed us out on a false alarm, but I know of no serious attempt's being made by the enemy, to molest us. The lake was fit to navigate about the middle of April. Somewhere about the 20th[6] the soldiers began to embark, to the number of 1700 men. A company came on board the Scourge, and they filled us chock-a-block. It came on to blow, and we were obliged to keep these poor fellows, cramped as we were, most of the time on deck, exposed to rain and storm. On the 25th we got out, rather a showy force altogether, though there was not much service in our small craft. We had a ship, a brig, and twelve schooners, fourteen sail in all. The next morning we were off Little York, having sailed with a fair wind. All hands anchored about a mile from the beach. I volunteered to go in a boat, to carry soldiers ashore. Each of us brought across the lake two of these boats in tow, but we had lost one of ours, dragging her after us in a staggering breeze. I got into the one that was left, and we put half our soldiers in her, and shoved off. We had little or no order in landing, each boat pulling as hard as she could. The English blazed away at us, concealed in a wood, and our men fired back again from the boat. I never was more disappointed in men, than I was in the soldiers. They were mostly tall, pale-looking Yankees, half dead with sickness and the bad weather--so mealy, indeed, that half of them could not take their grog, which, by this time, I had got to think a bad sign. As soon as they got near the enemy, however, they became wide awake, pointed out to each other where to aim, and many of them actually jumped into the water, in order to get the sooner ashore. No men could have behaved better, for I confess frankly I did not like the work at all. It is no fun to pull in under a sharp fire, with one's back to his enemy, and