March 13, 1864.
Sunday. Started for church with the quartermaster and brought up at a fire on St. Charles Street. Nearly a whole block was burned. I saw fire engines at work for the first time. There were several of them. They threw water enough to float a ship, and still the fire kept bursting out in a new place until all that could burn had been burned. The side streets were full of families and their belongings. At night we went again and saw a sailor from one of the boats baptized. After the sermon, a trap door was raised and under that was a space filled with water, into which the minister and the sailor walked by way of steps at one end, and where the convert was dipped just as they do it in the brook at Stanfordville.