June 5, 1864.
Sunday. Captain Laird, who has not been mustered yet, went to Port Hudson to see about it, to-day. I put in the day visiting and being visited. While in Sol's tent, and as we lay talking to each other, we heard a commotion in Colonel Parker's tent, which was close by. Just then a big black snake slid in under the tent, and stopped when right between us. His head was well up and he just slid over the ground like a sleigh crook. Sol's sword was within my reach and I crippled him before he got any further. Where on earth he could have come from and not be seen till he entered the colonel's tent is a mystery, for the ground is as bare as a board all through the camp, and men are all the time moving about on it. We think he must have crawled under somebody's bunk in the night, and not liking the quarters had started for the country again.