The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1862-04-03
Life On the Mississippi.

The correspondent of the Boston Journal with
the Missi sippi river expidition gives the follow
ing graphic description Of one of the Toes when
the Federal soldiers have to encounter IN thai
region
IS The spring of the year is exceedingly trying
to Northern constitutions, more so propaDly
then the summer even The soldiers are Obliged
to drink river water, Of The composition OF when
you can have but little conception MOI only
/ up the Tennessee but here We feel the deplllta-
ing influences Of the season.
| Can YOU eat drt-more than the single peck,
which 1t is said is allotted by Providence to
each individual in life? Can you eat. grease
in all it's forms--baked, boiled, fried, slmmered!
Can YOU bear varegated butter-varabe not
only in color, but in taste and smell? Can you
get along with ham, hash and beans tor break
fast hash ham and beans for dinner, and beans,
hash and ham for supper, with tat IN all Its
forms, with cakes sufficiently solid Tor grape shot
to fire ut the enemy f.; with BLACKLIST coffee, with
the nearest available cow seventy miles distant;
with sour molasses for greasy grlddles, with
Mississippi water to slake your thirst, thick
with slime from slaughter houses, sweepings
from streets, Stops from steamboats,, with all
the miasma and mold of the forests brought
down by the overflow
II you think You can stand up under this,
ust come out here and join this expedition, with
quarters on a transport such as you would be
likely to find. Look in the glass, after lew
days, and you will find that fresh countenance
of YOURS, with the veinous blood flushing the
cheeks, changed to a milk and mo|asses tint, in
clining to the molasses. The pure oxygen which
the winds Of winter have sent down from the
suow-elad submits of Wachusett and Monadnoe
has been by the marvellous economy of nature
transformed into elastic threads and fbres in
your system. You feel that Il little energy and
will would sweep secession out of the Ml5slss-
ippl valley, Il task you think as easy OF accom-
pIIshment as that assigned to the errand boy
who cleans ou5 your office IN the morning You
the terrible giant in the story book
OF your childhood, who made nothing of eating
q dozen men ;sJ IL breakfast, and feel that soces-
sion might be as easily dispatched, but the India
rubber tbr9s lose heir elasticity EnGrgy lags
and you become ike Il wiited cabbage leaf. |
speak from experience and observation Eastern
constitutions must be OF tough material to stand
The exhaustive processes incident to Mississ-
pp, expedition. Perhaps you will call this
high colored rather, | admit, bus as look at
the saffron hued countenances of several friends
lronnd me, Jhnk it needs no toning down.
Journalists are not the only suffers. A number
Of the officers of the feet are worn out by hard
work and the facilitating effects of diet and
rink which they are forced to accept.
A regiment OF New England troops would be
lecmated in short time in this locality. "You
must live high, physician remarked yester
lay. He might as we'll say to mouse in an
receiver" you must have a breath of
,ir it you want to live" 1t was a funny re-
mark Live high in Cairo, or on an expedition
Town the Mississippi!
have fallen into this strain partly from
personal experience, partly because ! see that
officers, soldiers and civilians alike succumb
before the debilating influences. There IS an
odor OF decay in the air, a taste of it in the
water. you have solution of mold in every drop
brought down from the million Of acres of
looded lands. There is death in the cup. There
Ire fearful bills of mortality before US IN the
uture.