22. A little vine has crept into my tent and put out a handsome flower.
General Buell and staff, with bag and baggage, left this morning.
25. Ordered to move.
29. We are at Decherd, Tennessee. I am weak, discouraged, and worn out with idleness.
The negroes are busily engaged throwing up earth works and building stockades. To-night, as they were in line, I stopped a moment to hear the sergeant call the roll, "Scipio McDonald." "Here I is, sah." "Cæsar—Cæsar McDonald." "Cæsar was 'sleep las' I saw ob him, sah." These negroes take the family name of their masters.
The whole army is concentrated here, or near here; but nobody knows anything, except that the water is bad, whisky scarce, dust abundant, and the air loaded with the scent and melody of a thousand mules. These long-eared creatures give us every variety of sound of which they are capable, from the deep bass bray to the most attenuated whinny.
The Thirty-third Ohio was shelled out of its fortifications at Battle creek yesterday. Colonel Moore is in the adjoining tent, giving an account of his trials and tribulations to Shanks of the New York Herald.
Fifty of the Third, under Lieutenant Carpenter, went to Stevenson yesterday; on their return they were fired upon by guerrillas. Jack Boston shot a man and captured a horse.