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.Another German prisoner, Johann Conrad D�hla wrote in his diary:

�5 November. We arrived Winchester�We marched through the place and another four Virginia miles, over two hours farther, to an old and large barracks with two levels, called the New Frederick Barracks, where both our regiments were lodged on the lower level. The English troops still with us were placed on the upper level.
If this is to be our winter quarters, may God have mercy upon us: numerous wretched huts built of wood and clay, most of which have no roofs or poor roofs, no cots, only poor fireplaces, neither doors nor windows, and lie in the middle of a forest. We already had many sick and fatigued people, which was not surprising.
During this move we spent sixteen days and made a march of two hundred forty Virginia miles�
6 November. We were divided among our barracks, twenty or thirty men in a hut, where we did not have room enough to stand. We were also locked in like dogs, and our rooms were worse than the pig stalls and doghouses are in Germany.
8 November. We began to improve our barracks a bit. We made cabins and cots therein, for which we had permission from the Americans to get wood from the nearby forests. We closed the roofs and filled all the holes in the walls with wood and clay to protect ourselves from the cold. The worst evil in the huts was the constant smoke from the fireplaces, which often was such that it was impossible to see one another. We also collected bulrushes in the forest and cut grass, which served as mattress filler. Many of our people, with the permission of the American commanding officer, went, with or without passes, into the surrounding region to work for the residents threshing, spinning, cutting wood, or whatever the people had to do, in order to ease the hunger and to earn a shirt to put on their backs. We were allowed�to go into the city of Winchester and outside the barracks, five or six miles, without being stopped. This permission was undoubtedly the best part of our captivity. However, the rations were therefore that much worse, and they were meted out to us very sparingly and of poor quality. We received absolutely no bread except for an occasional uncooked Indian bread from the escort, which was even worse than pumpernickel. And instead of bread, which was to have been furnished according to the surrender agreement, we received a little raw and half-cooked oatmeal, from which we occasionally bake bread pancakes, for which the ever-present stewpot served us.� 14

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14 Johann Conrad D�hla, p. 189-190.