At this camp there was a house in which the men took their meals, but I visited other camps in which there was no such accommodation.  I saw the German regiment called to its supper by tuck of drum, and the men marched in gallantly, armed each with a knife and spoon.  I managed to make my way in at the door after them, and can testify to the excellence of the provisions of which their supper consisted.  A poor diet never enters into any combination of circumstances contemplated by an American.  Let him be where he will, animal food is with him the first necessary of life, and he is always provided accordingly.  As to those Wisconsin men whom I saw, it was probable that they might be marched off, down South to Washington, or to the doubtful glories of the Western campaign under Fremont, before the winter commenced.  The same might have been said of any special regiment.  But taking the whole mass of men who were collected under canvas at the end of the autumn of 1861, and who were so collected without arms or military clothing, and without protection from the weather, it did seem that the task taken in hand by the Commissariat of the Northern army was one not devoid of difficulty.

The view from Milwaukee over Lake Michigan is very pleasing.  One looks upon a vast expanse of water to which the eye finds no bounds, and therefore there are none of the common attributes of lake beauty; but the color of the lake is bright, and within a walk of the city the traveler comes to the bluffs or low round-topped hills, from which we can look down upon the shores.  These bluffs form the beauty of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and relieve the eye after the flat level of Michigan.  Round Detroit there is no rising ground, and therefore, perhaps, it is that Detroit is uninteresting.

I have said that those who are called on to labor in these States have their own hardships, and I have endeavored to explain what are the sufferings to which the town laborer is subject.  To escape from this is the laborer’s great ambition, and his mode of doing so consists almost universally in the purchase of land.  He saves up money in order that he may buy a section of an allotment, and thus become his own master.  All his savings are made with a view to this independence.  Seated on his own land he will have to work probably harder than ever, but he will work for himself.  No task-master can then stand over him and wound his pride with harsh words.  He will be his own master; will eat the food which he himself has grown, and live in the cabin which his own hands have built.  This is the object of his life; and to secure this position he is content to work late and early and to undergo the indignities of previous servitude.  The government price for land is about five shillings an acre—­one dollar and a quarter—­and the settler may get it for this price if he be contented to take it not only untouched as regards clearing, but also far removed from any completed road.  The traffic