onment New Hope, "the roof of our cabin
blew off, and the walls seemed about to fall in. My father, sending my
mother and brother to a place of safety, held up the chimney to prevent
a total downfall; while the baby, who had been pushed under the bed in
her cradle, lay there.... until the wind subsided, when, upon being
drawn out from her hiding-place, she evinced great pleasure at the
commotion, and seemed to take it all as something designed especially
for her amusement." That baby lived to recall the incident almost
seventy years later.[73]

Toward the close of the winter there came sickness, chiefly on account
of a lack of proper provisions. Late in the fall Lieutenant Oliver had
left Prairie du Chien with supplies in a keel boat. But the river froze
and the boat was unable to progress farther than the vicinity of
Hastings, Minnesota. Here it was necessary to keep a guard all winter to
protect the food from the Indians and the wolves. The Indians refused to
sell them game; no vegetables could be purchased; and the bread was "two
inches in the barrels thick with mould".[74] With such food it is no
wonder that scurvy, the dreaded disease of all frontier posts, broke out
among the troops. Forty soldiers died before the progress of the disease
was arrested by home-made remedies and groceries brought up by the
sutler.[75]

This visitation of disease left a profound impression upon the
survivors. Henry H. Sibley, who had often spoken with those who passed
through the weary months of suffering and sickness, wrote that "scurvy
broke out in a most malignant form, and raged so violently that, for a
few days, garrison duty was suspended, there being barely well men
enough in the command to attend to the sick, and to the interment of the
dead. So sudden were the attacks, that soldiers in apparent good health
when they went to bed, were found dead in the morning. One man who was
relieved from his tour of sentinel duty, and stretched himself upon the
bench of the guard room, four hours after, when he was called
upon to resume his post, was discovered to be lifeless."[76]

Thinking that much of the sickness was caused by the unhealthful
location, Colonel Leavenworth, on May 5, 1820, moved the soldiers to a
place on the west bank of the Mississippi north of the Minnesota where
there was a great spring of cold water. Here the troops were quartered
in tents--naming their community "Camp Cold Water".[77] The immediate
need was the