Private Freeman Doane, Company F, was also found asleep on post at Lakeport on the twenty-ninth of April, and placed in arrest. Upon examination of the case Captain Cogswell was so well satisfied that Doane was sick and not fit to have been placed on sentry duty, being under the surgeon’s care, that he asked for and obtained his release the next day.
Lieutenant Albert E. Proctor, Company G, acting regimental quartermaster, met with a very serious accident on the morning of the twentieth by being thrown from his horse, in front of headquarters, immediately after mounting, preparatory to proceeding to the city on official business, sustaining a fracture of the right arm near the socket of the shoulder, which incapacitated him from further duty with the regiment during its term of service.
A moment before he left headquarters in fine spirits, and when brought in looking deathly pale everybody present was dumfounded. Luckily, Assistant-Surgeon Heintzelman was present on duty with the regiment, having reported at camp March 1st. He immediately made a careful examination of the fracture, properly bandaged it, and prepared everything to make Proctor comfortable until he arrived at the hospital in New Orleans, where he was sent the same day and had his arm reset. Lieutenant Proctor showed true fortitude throughout the day. Not a groan escaped his lips, although the pain he suffered was excruciating. He gave proper directions for the continued performance of his duties and what disposition to make of unfinished business he had on hand with utmost sang-froid.
Lieutenant Proctor was a twin brother of Captain Alfred N. Proctor, Company G, then a prisoner of war in Texas. It was difficult to say who was who, even when seen together. The lieutenant remarked, soon after the accident to himself, that his brother Alfred had met with an accident also. His reason for thinking so was because a sympathetic feeling had always existed between them. As a matter of fact, Captain Proctor did have one of the bones of an ankle broken while wrestling with Sergeant Wentworth, March 27th.
Until May 20th, when Quartermaster Burrell reported back for duty, having been relieved as acting brigade-quartermaster, when Colonel Cahill, Ninth Connecticut Volunteers, superseded Colonel Farr, the active duties of the position were well performed by Acting Quartermaster-Sergeant Alonzo I. Hodsdon, corporal in Company D.
The regiment was fortunate in having good quartermasters during the term of service, and in obtaining supplies of proper food. The salt meats, coffee, potatoes, bread, etc., were of excellent quality. It was necessary only once (May 15th) during the entire term of service to call for a Board of Survey to examine into the quality of subsistence stores received from the Commissary Department. Quartermaster Burrell was socially one of the best of men, with business qualifications for his duty of a high order. Acting-Quartermaster Proctor was also adapted to fill the position, and was a jovial man. Corporal Hodsdon, without a business training to fit him to hold such a position at once, had mastered the details to such extent from his connection with the department that during the time he performed the duties everything went along smoothly.
At the close of April there were present for duty in the four companies at Gentilly Bayou and vicinity, thirteen officers and three hundred and fifty-six men. Sick in regimental hospital: one officer (Lieutenant Harding, Company K, who arrived April 27th, sick with fever), and twenty-one men. Thirteen men were sick in quarters. The average sick per day for the month had been: taken sick, four; returned to duty, four; in hospital, twenty; in quarters, fourteen. One man died at the camp hospital of typhoid fever, Private Frank Covell, Company G, a paroled prisoner, April 22d. The body was embalmed and sent home. Private Covell, quite young in years, was careless of his health. He would insist on sleeping at night in the open air instead of under tent cover, exposed unprotected to change in the atmosphere, usually very rapid after nine o’clock. Repeated cautions not to do so were given him. Company G was unfortunate at this camp in the loss of men by death from disease. The other companies of paroled men, D and I, did not lose a man.
At Bayou Gentilly the night air was treacherous and dangerous. In good weather the days, at this season of the year, would be hot and sultry up to about ten o’clock in the night, when changes would commence to occur, becoming damp and hazy. About midnight sentinels were obliged to wear their great-coats. Many men would persist in sleeping upon the ground in the open air, regardless of repeated warnings not to do so. When the midnight change took place, if they by chance awoke, they would occupy their tents. This careless habit caused much sickness in the regiment from bowel complaints and fevers, that was charged by the sufferers to bad quality of rations issued.
Discipline of the camp continued good, and the paroled men behaved well under their enforced idleness. Very few men absented themselves without leave. Corporal Clapp, Privates Holt, Barnard and Davis, all from Company G, tried it on and were picked up by the patrol in New Orleans, April 4th. Privates Dolan, Dellanty, Contillon and Morgan, all from Company I, were bagged by the patrol on the fifth, and Private Marshall, Company G, was arrested by the police of New Orleans, April 12th. These men were returned to camp by the provost-marshal in one or two days after their arrest.
Two deserters reported back to the regiment this month: Private Chauncy Converse, Company K, on the eleventh; Private Lewis Buffum, Company B, on the twenty-fifth.