Another incident illustrates the practical manner with which the officers regarded the lives of their men. A veteran captain noticed some of the new accessions to his company needlessly exposing themselves, as he thought, and this is about what he said to them: “Get down behind the breastworks; you cost twelve hundred dollars a piece, and I’ll be d--d if I am going to have you throw your lives away; you’re too expensive!” CHAPTER XIV. WINTER QUARTERS. How many of our readers who are old enough to remember back so far can tell what kind of a winter we had 40 years ago? Probably not more than one in a hundred, unless it be some of the survivors of the army of the Potomac, or the army of the James, for the winter of 1864-5, was one of unusual severity, and there was much suffering among the troops in the trenches before Petersburg and Richmond. Possibly it may interest some of the present generation to know how the soldiers, who were only provided with little shelter tents, managed to keep warm through the winter months when it was cold enough down there for ice to form on all of the streams. Usually four men would go in together and build a little hut out of logs, sticks, pieces of boards or whatever they could pick up, chinking the cracks with Virginia mud, which, when hardened, no amount of rain or wind would loosen. The roof was usually made from their tents unless enough split timber could be got to lap one over the other. From old barrel staves, small limbs and the same Virginia mud a chimney would be built at the end of the hut, connecting with a spacious fireplace. On one side a double bunk made from saplings and covered with grass, leaves or hay, over which was spread a blanket with knapsacks for pillows, formed the beds. It was a credit to Yankee ingenuity to see the devices the men had for conveniences. Candlesticks were made out of bottles or cans filled with sand. Cracker boxes were converted into handy cupboards or tables and little cellars were scooped out from under the bunks. In the drummer boys’ quarters, drums were used for writing stands and card playing tables, while often a checkerboard would be sketched on the head of the drum and for men buttons would be used, and with plenty of rations we managed to be quite comfortable except when on picket. LEE’S SOLDIERS COLD AND HUNGRY. The question of supplies is a vital one to an army, and how to clothe and feed the confederate soldiers was a most serious problem to the southern leaders in the last year of the war. The “Johnnies” with their threadbare clothing and scant rations suffered everything during the cold winter of ’64-5. Of tea and coffee they had none except in their hospitals. The only thing they had a superfluity of was tobacco, and this they were ready to swap for coffee or anything to eat. In front of our corps was a strip of woods where the blue and the gray used to meet on friendly terms, cut wood, swap coffee, tobacco, papers, stories, etc.