The organization of the camp kitchens had to be learned by the hardest also, and the men in each company who had some aptitude for cooking had to be found by a slow process of natural selection, during which many an unpalatable meal had to be eaten.

A disagreeable bit of information came to us in the proof that more than half the men had never had the contagious diseases of infancy.

The measles broke out, and we had to organize a camp hospital at once.

A large barn near by was taken for this purpose, and the surgeons had their hands full of cases which, however trivial they might seem at home, were here aggravated into dangerous illness by the unwonted surroundings and the impossibility of securing the needed protection from exposure.

As soon as the increase of sickness in the camp was known in Cincinnati, the good women of that city took promptly in hand the task of providing nurses for the sick, and proper diet and delicacies for hospital uses.