JOüü MARIO HERNANDEZ
**3«
oí the 2nd Dragoons and ————
On the 7th of September at dawn, the soldier* were all in their sad¬
dles, eager and ready to find the savages in their fastnesses and taking
up the line of maroh with wheit provisions and luggage capable of being oar-
rled on the horses or stowed in one wag, on, they prooesded South with the
intention of pitching the blvouao at Billow's the first night.
The road for the first 20 miles lay through wet pine barrens and over
an anolent causeway, known aa the Rings Road, first laid out when this ter¬
ritory belonged to the Spanish orown. At noon the troop rested the horses
and refreshed themselves from their haversacks. This important duty ac¬
complished, they resumed their maroh through heavy sands and occasional
swamps, suooeeded by thiok sorubs, until noar dark when the ruins of Bulow's
noble mill and mansion designated the oamp for the night, the dist&noe al¬
ready oovered being over 30 miles sinos morning, Reaohing Bulow's, the troop
turned down a broad avenue onoe flanked by noble oaks whose blackened trunks
and lsafless limbs alone remained to testify their former magnificence.
On either side were extensive fields once luxuriant with richest sugar
crops, now presenting a soene on whloh the demon of desolation stalked. On
the left rose thru the oalm twilight, ruined arohes and oolumns of the onoe
stately sugar mills while before the soldiers lay a smouldering ash heap, the
only vestige to show where onoe stood a hospitable mansion. Amid these ruins
the blvouao fires were built near the River Halifax, smoothly gliding nearby.
After swallowing a frugal supper, the soldiers wrapped themselves up,
c amp
each in his/blanket and stretching their limbs upon the dowy ground slept on
their primitive oouohes, pavilioned by the broad vaults of heaven. V.ith the
morning dawn they were all astir and the oamp presented a bustling scene.