On the first occasion the meat was simply the heads of the cattle killed for the use of the guards.

Several wagon loads of these were brought in and distributed.

We broke them up so that every man got a piece of the bone, which was boiled and reboiled, as long as a single bubble of grease would rise to the surface of the water; every vestige of meat was gnawed and scraped from the surface and then the bone was charred until it crumbled, when it was eaten.

No one who has not experienced it can imagine the inordinate hunger for animal food of those who had eaten little else than corn bread for so long.

Our exhausted bodies were perishing for lack of proper sustenance.