Hospitality in a One Room Cabin

Garnet, Kansas, Monday 3rd. We did not leave Ossawatamie until noon, and reached here, twenty-four miles distant, at dark. I stopped with a Mr. Chamberlin three miles back on the road. Mr. Chamberlin was beside the road chopping wood as we passed. I fell out of the ranks to talk a little with him. He invited me to stop over night with him. I told him I would have to get permission. As I rode off to ask Lt. Downing if I could stop, Chamberlin told me to bring a comrade with me. I did so. We had good shelter and plenty of feed for our horses. When we went into the house, I wondered why the man should think of inviting us to spend the night with him. It was a log house of but one room, with a bed in one end and a big fireplace in the other, and a family of himself, wife and small child. But their hospitality was large. They furnished us a good supper and breakfast, and all the floor room we needed before the fireplace to spread our blankets on. It was solid comfort in more respects than one, after our long ride on a cold winter’s day over an open prairie country. The ground is covered with snow and it is real cold.

Humbolt, Kansas, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1862. Comrade Courtwright and I joined the command at Garnet early this morning. That is a nice little town on the open prairie, and is the county seat of Anderson county. We left there about eight A.M., marching in a southern direction through Greely, then to Iola, where there is a small fort and four hundred soldiers, then to this place six miles further south. There is a fort here and a company of state militia. This place is one hundred and ten miles south of Fort Leavenworth, and the same distance southwest of Kansas City.

Humbolt, Kansas, Wednesday, Feb.5, 1862. The regiment has not reached here yet. It is raining today.