The 4th infantry went into camp at Salubrity in the month of May, 1844, with instructions, as I have said, to await further orders.  At first, officers and men occupied ordinary tents.  As the summer heat increased these were covered by sheds to break the rays of the sun.  The summer was whiled away in social enjoyments among the officers, in visiting those stationed at, and near, Fort Jessup, twenty-five miles away, visiting the planters on the Red River, and the citizens of Natchitoches and Grand Ecore.  There was much pleasant intercourse between the inhabitants and the officers of the army.  I retain very agreeable recollections of my stay at Camp Salubrity, and of the acquaintances made there, and no doubt my feeling is shared by the few officers living who were there at the time.  I can call to mind only two officers of the 4th infantry, besides myself, who were at Camp Salubrity with the regiment, who are now alive.

With a war in prospect, and belonging to a regiment that had an unusual number of officers detailed on special duty away from the regiment, my hopes of being ordered to West Point as instructor vanished.  At the time of which I now write, officers in the quartermaster’s, commissary’s and adjutant—­general’s departments were appointed from the line of the army, and did not vacate their regimental commissions until their regimental and staff commissions were for the same grades.  Generally lieutenants were appointed to captaincies to fill vacancies in the staff corps.  If they should reach a captaincy in the line before they arrived at a majority in the staff, they would elect which commission they would retain.  In the 4th infantry, in 1844, at least six line officers were on duty in the staff, and therefore permanently detached from the regiment.  Under these circumstances I gave up everything like a special course of reading, and only read thereafter for my own amusement, and not very much for that, until the war was over.  I kept a horse and rode, and staid out of doors most of the time by day, and entirely recovered from the cough which I had carried from West Point, and from all indications of consumption.  I have often thought that my life was saved, and my health restored, by exercise and exposure, enforced by an administrative act, and a war, both of which I disapproved.

As summer wore away, and cool days and colder nights came upon us, the tents.  We were occupying ceased to afford comfortable quarters; and “further orders” not reaching us, we began to look about to remedy the hardship.  Men were put to work getting out timber to build huts, and in a very short time all were comfortably housed—­privates as well as officers.  The outlay by the government in accomplishing this was nothing, or nearly nothing.  The winter was spent more agreeably than the summer had been.  There were occasional parties given by the planters along the “coast”—­as the bottom lands on the Red River were called.  The climate was delightful.