The season for the suspension of active hostilities having arrived, it is necessary for the commander of an army to select some place in which his forces can remain for the winter--where they will have sufficient facilities for fuel and water, where their health can be preserved, where they can be protected against surprises or annoyance, where the country can be covered and guarded, and where the supplies can be drawn with security from the base of operations. After a due consideration of all the intelligence that can be obtained upon these points, the commander issues his general directions, the various corps move to their designated positions, and preparations for the habitations of the winter are made. Each corps commander, either personally or by his staff officers, makes a survey of his ground, and assigns the positions of his divisions. If within a few miles of the enemy, he throws detachments of observation toward the front, and then proceeds to establish his picket line, usually some three or five miles in advance of his main line. Precautions for security being thus adopted, more minute inspections of the ground are made, so that unhealthy positions may be avoided. The troops, being placed, immediately proceed to clear the sites of their respective encampments, and wagons are set to work to bring in logs with which huts may be constructed. In about a week thousands of diminutive log houses arise, roofed with the shelter tents of the soldiers, or, when the occupants have sufficient handicraft ability, with rough shingles. Shelters are erected, as far as possible, for the animals, generally being nothing more than frameworks covered with pine brush. If there are lumber mills in the vicinity, they are set to work, and boards sawed for floors to the tents and hospitals. The adjacent forests now begin to disappear rapidly, leaving nothing but an unsightly array of stumps; for a regiment is entitled to about two hundred cords of wood per month as fuel, and in a well-wooded country, where the men can conveniently cut for themselves, much more is consumed. Every regiment requires, therefore, about eight or ten acres of woodland per month. An army of a hundred regiments will, in the course of a winter, denude several square miles of trees, so that (in the proportion which woodland generally bears to that which is cleared) a space of country equal to a county may be stripped of its timber. The men, having made themselves comfortable, are now called on to form working parties, and put the roads leading to the depots and the various camps in good order, generally corduroying them, so as to be passable during the winter; bridges are made over streams, drainage perfected, &c. In a few weeks, the chief portion of the labor of preparing a winter's camp is completed.