The next day was a halt. Many of us were more fitted for hospital at day-break than for marching, but, after a bathe in the stream, a change of linen, and salving our wounds, we were in better mood. Then Armstrong, the old orderly, suggested that we should shed our knapsacks of all ‘rubbish,’ and assisted his friends by his advice as to what was indispensable and what was superfluous. The camp-fires consumed what we had rejected, and, when we noted the lightened weight of our knapsacks after this ruthless ransackment, we felt fitter for the march than on the day we departed from the Arkansas River. Our surroundings at camp were novel for inexperienced youths. We were tented along the road-side, having taken down the fences of a field, and encroached on farm-lands, without asking permission. The rails were also freely used by us as firewood. A town of canvas had risen as if by magic, with broad, short streets, between the company tents; and in the rear were located the wagons carrying provisions, ammunition, and extra equipments. In a few days we were camped in the neighbourhood of Searcy, about sixty miles from Little Rock. The aspect of the country was lovely, but there was something fatal to young recruits in its atmosphere. Within two weeks an epidemic carried off about fifty, and quite as many more lay in hospital. Whether it was the usual camp typhus, or malarious fever, aggravated by fatigue and wretched rations, I was too young to know or to concern myself about; but, in the third week, it seemed to threaten us all, and I remember how the soldiers resorted to the prayer-meetings in each company, and how solemn they were at service on Sunday. The pressure of an impending calamity lay heavy upon us all while in camp, but, as soon as we left it, we recovered our spirits. It was at this camp I acquired the art of diving. At swimming I was a proficient a long time before, but the acquisition of this last accomplishment soon enabled me to astonish my comrades by the distance I could traverse under water. The brigade of General Hindman was at last complete in its organisation, and consisted of four regiments, some cavalry, and a battery of artillery. About the middle of September we moved across the State towards Hickman on the Mississippi, crossing the Little Red, White, Big Black, and St. Francis Rivers, by the way. Once across the Mississippi, we marched up the river, and, in the beginning of November, halted at what was then called ‘the Gibraltar of the Mississippi.’