Location:Stonefall Crossing — The Northern Escort Route, below the Middle Ford
Date/Time:TC1858.01.25 – TC1858.01.26
From the near bank at first light, the crossing looked as if somebody had started a road across the river from both sides and given up a third of the way over.
Ice came out from each bank in shelves, gray-white and ridged where the water had risen under it and dropped again, and between the two shelves the river ran black and fast and did not freeze at all. The stones were under that. You could see them if you knew to look, flat backs a shade paler than the water, set in a line from shelf to shelf, and the Corps had been walking that line since the autumn in boots that were never going to be dry again.
Two fires, one on each bank, each with a lean-to of poles and hide behind it. Smoke went straight up from both because there was no wind yet. Five people at each fire. Ten.
