John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[179] In camp, a different plan was adopted. If it was in the open, a line of posts was set at intervals, such as would keep the rope from sagging low, and to them it was secured. The earth for ten feet on either side was then thrown up beneath like a well graded street, so as to drain off readily. Sometimes the picket was established in the edge of woods, in which case the rope ran from tree to tree. In summer camp a shelter of boughs was constructed over the picket. In winter, a wall of pine-boughs was set up around, to fend off bleak winds. Now and then, one was roofed with a thatch of confiscated straw; and I remember of seeing one nearly covered with long clapboard-like shingles, which were rifted out of pine-logs.

The character and stability of all such structures depended largely upon the skill displayed by regimental and company commanders in devising means to keep men employed, and on the tenure of a company's stay in a place. But at this late day I fail to recall a single instance where the men called a meeting and gave public expression to their gratitude and appreciation in a vote of thanks for the kind thoughtfulness displayed by said commanders. In fact, not this alone but all varieties of fatigue were accompanied in their doing with no end of growling. It was aggravating after several days of exhausting labor, of cutting and carting and digging and paving,--for some of the “high-toned” commanders had the picket paved with cobble-stones,--to have boot-and-saddle call blown, summoning the company away, never to return to that camp, but to go elsewhere and repeat their building operations. It was the cheapest kind of balm to a company's feelings, where so much of love's — or rather unwilling-labor had been lost, to see another company appear, just as the first was leaving, and literally enter into the labors of the former, taking quiet and full possession of everything left behind. Yet such was one of the inevitable concomitants