From this time until the beginning of August the regiment experienced such hardships and sufferings from diseases and hard service, that it sustained far greater losses from these causes than any other regiment from our state had met with in open battle. Pine Bluff was a veritable pest-hole; the water was of a greenish color, the air full of germs of disease and poisonous vapors. Continually surrounded and threatened by a vigilant enemy, the exhausted and sickly soldiers had to get up at three o'clock every morning for the purpose of working at the entrenchments and strengthening and protecting our position in different ways. Meanwhile the number of those fit for duty was daily decreasing at an appalling rate. The hospitals were overcrowded with patients, and the few men left for duty were continually occupied in caring for the sick and burying the dead, until there were not men enough left to bury their dead comrades, and I was obliged to ask a regiment, which had recently arrived, to help us perform that sad duty. At this critical moment I received orders from Washington to take six companies to Minnesota, on a six weeks' veteran furlough, to which the regiment was entitled. Those went who were able to. Many died on the way, but those of us who survived until we reached Minnesota were soon restored to usual health and strength, so that we could return in due time and again take part in the campaign in Arkansas. The remaining four companies, which had been furloughed the previous winter, were ordered from Pine Bluff to Duvall's Bluff, on White river, where the whole regiment was reunited under my command in the beginning of October, and remained in winter quarters until the spring of 1865. Shortly after our return to Arkansas I assumed command of the First Brigade, First Division, Seventh army corps. This brigade consisted of my own regiment, the Twelfth Michigan, the Sixty-first Illinois, and a United States colored regiment. Our prospects for remaining in winter quarters for several months being favorable, many of the higher officers sent for their wives. I did the same, having first erected a comfortable log house for us. My wife and two little children arrived a few days before Christmas, and stayed in the camp the whole winter. No important event took place during the winter, excepting that we were once ordered to make an expedition up White river, with a considerable force of cavalry and infantry, and, after a fatiguing march, succeeded in breaking up a camp of irregular Confederate troops, and taking many prisoners. I will relate two incidents which took place near Duvall's Bluff, one of a serious, the other of a comic nature.