Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1916-05-03
c. N. SLAYTON WRITES
INTERESTING STORY
OF CAMP NELSON

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there. Two citizens were employed
in the same business at $4,000 per
month and rations while your humble
servant received $13 with the chance
of being ordered into the trenches
should there be any approaching dan
ger. Transfers received $35 and car
penters $50 per month We occupied
common wall tent in which we laid
floor and bought a very small cook
stove to cook over and heat the tent
The chief engineer and company oc-
cupied three or four tents close by.
We had in the engineers depart
ment on an average of about 200 men,
and II or Is horses and mules. Think
of the expense of such a camp. 1t
was supposed to keep two million ra-
tons on hand all the time, enough to
last 10000 men 200 days. Five hun
dred wagons were kept in camp, one
half of which were on the road all the
time drawing supplies from Nicholas
vile and taking them to Eastern Ten
nessee to the army. When we went
there | counted 20 store houses for
quartermasters and commissaries'
supplies, each 30 by 100 feet. The
sheds for the corn and oats, which
were in sacks, were 100x330 feet, be-
sides a crib for corn in the ear 30x150
feet. The grain was 10 feet deep in
them all. The sheds for baled hay
were equally as extensive and more
were constantly being put up. Four
steam sawmills were kept running all
the time, cutting out lumber for use
in the camp. The butcher told me one
day that he killed 80 bullocks day
to supply the camp with beef. AL
though water was plenty and quite
handy, yet they went to putting in
system of water works to have it
more convenient and to spend the gov
ernment's money. A reservoir was
built 100 feet square and II feet deep
with walls 20 feet thick at the bot
tom and six feet on top. Iron pipes
were laid from this to various places
in the camp. The water was TO be
forced up to the reservoir from the
Kentucky river, 400 feet below by a
steam engine, which was let down the
nearly perpendicular bluff 300 feet by
means of ropes and windlass. There,
go feet above the river, a place was
blasted out of the rocky wall to set it
in. Steps were built to go down to
it, but all timber and materials had to
be let down with ropes. 1t was in
COIlpltbt WltH We lCll anu lillllh
never was finished.
Many horses and mules were bought
here for government use. Sometimes
as high as 800 were purchased and
branded in a single day. One hundred
and thirty-five dollars bought a horse
and $175 a mule. The men selling
the animals were paid in vouchers,
which were discounted for cash by the
moneyed men, who easily got their
cash of the government. | soon found
out that they were up to all sorts of
schemes for making money. | went
to them with requisition for forage
for our department, calling for 1000
pounds of oats and 1000 pounds of
corn. They gave me the last in the
ear when it should have been shelled.
The next day | went back and got
500 pounds more to make up for the
cob and after that watched out for
their little games.
In the part of the camp that | sur
veyed out, were over one and one-half
miles of rifle trenches, all made by
driving 3x4 scantlings into the ground
from to feet apart and rivetting it
up four feet high with boards, then
banking the earth against it from to
A feet thick. A good place to fight
in, but they were never used.
The different phases of Kentuckian
life, that | would run across when
surveying, were at times a little
amusing. Once / tried for half an
hour to find out of darby, who was
running sawmill, how much lumber
he cut out in a day, and all could
get out of him was that he Sawed
right smart. He said he had run dat
mill so years and guessed he knew
how" But another day / did little
better when we passed by Major Han
ley's, where they were threshing
wheat, for they said they could thresh
a "big heap adding
that they threshed 200 or 800 bushels
in a day. 1t took them half a day
to set the machine up. All the darkies
wer the majors slaves. We went
past a steam grist mill one day, big
mill, too, for Kentucky, and l counted
10 saddle horses tied to the fence and
only one wagon and that had yoke
of oxen hitched to it. / went by this
mill many times and never saw a
horse team there with a grist, though
sometimes / had seen heater people.
One day l got thirsty and called at
house for a drink. A boy filled a
RldSS IfOfn DuCkeJ IndI SIOOu out VI
doors, which / drank and thanked him
very kindly, although had see half
a dozen hens drinking from the same
bucket not five minutes before.
In the spring we had a great desire
for some warm maple sugar, so one
day we bought some of a citizen who
brought it into camp to sell, saying it
was very nice as is wife had made
it. After eating our fill, the remains
looked as thogh the lady of that
house might have been consumer of
home productions, which many of
them were, and had made a mistake,
and instead Of throwing what she had
discarded into the fire had accidental
ly got in into the kettle where she was
sugaring off. We did not banker any
more for Kentucky stree sugar"
Refugees were frequently brought
in from Eastern Tennessee. One fam
lily, Mr.. Halls, numbered IL children,
7 girls and 5 boys. The two oldest
girls could read little, but none of
the children could write, but they lik
ed "store tobacco" One girl of 10