Draußen schlafen

You can't rest while enemies are nearby

Reverting back to the severity of the winter and the danger of sleeping in houses, I will relate the following incident. In the early part of January 1864, some of the boys had arranged for a dance one night at a neighboring house a few miles from my father's home. There were a dozen boys and about an equal number of girls in attendance. The snow was ten or twelve inches deep and the night bitterly cold. After spending some time with them, I concluded to go home and spend the remainder of the night with the home folks. All had retired for the night sometime before my arrival. Tying my horse out some distance from the house, I went in and lay down on a pallet before the fire and was soon sound asleep.
Suddenly the tramp, tramp of feet going around the house in the dry powdery snow awoke me. Listening a moment, I felt sure the house was being surrounded by Federals. Feeling that I had been caught like a rat in a trap, and believing that death was the penalty, I leave to the reader to imagine my feelings. The noise had awakened all the family and made upon their minds the same impression, but all kept perfectly quiet. Cautiously pulling the door slightly ajar, I saw to my inexpressible relief cattle instead of Federal soldiers.
A gate in front of the house had in some way been opened and the cattle came in, some going one way and some the other around the house. I think that was the worst scare I had during the four years of war. For some time after that I preferred the shadows of the deep woods to the shelter of a house, regardless of the weather. A house was liable to be surrounded or waylaid at any time, and many lives were lost in that way, by parties venturing to sleep in their homes.

- The Civil War Memoir of Joseph M. Bailey