These measures, together with the deportment of Colonel Burr, gained
him the love and veneration of all devoted to the common cause, and
conciliated even its bitterest foes. His habits were a subject of
admiration. His diet was simple and spare in the extreme. Seldom
sleeping more than an hour at a time, and without taking off his
clothes, or even his boots.
Between midnight and two o'clock in the morning, accompanied by two or
three of his corps of horsemen, he visited the quarters of all his
captains, and their picket-guards, changing his route from time to
time to prevent notice of his approach. You may judge of the severity
of this duty, when I assure you that the distance which he thus rode
every night must have been from _sixteen_ to _twenty-four_ miles; and
that, with the exception of two nights only, in which he was otherwise
engaged, he never omitted these excursions, even in the severest and
most stormy weather; and, except the short time necessarily consumed
in hearing and answering complaints and petitions from persons both
above and below the lines, Colonel Burr was constantly with the
troops.
He attended to the minutest article of their comfort; to their
lodgings; to their diet: for those off duty he invented sports, all
tending to some useful end. During two or three weeks after the
colonel's arrival, we had many sharp conflicts with the robbers and
horse-thieves, who were hunted down with unceasing industry.
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