Wednesday. Marching orders again. Donaldsonville is our destination. They have undertaken a job down there without consulting the 128th New York and consequently have got into trouble, which we have got to go and fix up.
Dr. Andrus joined the regiment this morning and we cheered most as loud as when Port Hudson surrendered. Dr. Cole came soon after and was received in silence. We have not forgotten Corporal Blunt yet. He is a murderer, pure and simple. How he can hold his head as high as he does, I don't see. I hope he will get what he deserves some day, but such people seldom do. I saw a New York paper to-day. It was full of the fight at Gettysburg. From all I can make of it our forces got the worst of it in the first day's fight, but as it was still going on when the paper was printed the scale may have turned. I suppose the 150th was in it, and I shall want to see another paper to know how it ended, and if John was hurt.
4 p. m. On board the steamer St. Charles. We expect to make Donaldsonville by eight to-night. The sail down the river is glorious. Whatever comes when we reach our destination, we are having a regular picnic now. Going with the current, the boat cuts the water like a knife. There is too much to look at and to enjoy for me to waste the time writing, so good-bye till to-morrow.
July 16, 1863.
Donaldsonville, La. Thursday. We landed here about midnight last night. A heavy shower overtook us on the way and wet us to the skin, consequently what sleep we had was on wet ground and in wet clothes. This has been a very pretty place. The levee hides it from view from the river, but the place and the country around it is beautiful. It has been fortified, and when the gunboats fought their way up the river a year ago they were obliged to mar its beauty somewhat. There is a sugar mill near by with lots of sugar and molasses in it. The best thing is an immense cornfield right beside us, and the corn is just right to roast or boil. It is the southern variety, great big stalks, with great big ears on, and we can get a mouthful at every bite. There are a lot of troops here—I should think at least 10,000. Just what we are here for none of us have yet found out. The colored population is all I have yet seen. I visited the sugar mill and from an old darkey learned all about making sugar and molasses. There is a long shed, and under it is an endless chain arrangement upon which the sugar cane is laid as it comes in carts from the field. This carries the cane into the mill, where it passes between heavy iron rollers, which squeeze the cane so dry that it is used for fuel under the boilers that furnish steam to drive the rollers. The juice runs into a big copper kettle, where it is boiled awhile and then dipped into another and so on, until when it comes from the last it is run into what I should call a cellar under the sugar house. This is made tight in some way, probably with cement, and in it the sugar settles to the bottom. I was told that the bottom of this cellar slopes from the sides towards the center, so that the sugar settles in the center. Over this cellar is a floor that slopes from the sides to the center just as the cellar bottom does. The getting of the sugar into hogsheads is the next operation. Hogsheads are placed on the sloping floor, with one head open. Holes are bored in the lower head and into these sugar canes are stuck before any sugar is put in. They have immense great hoes, with long handles, and with these the men dig up the sugar and dump it into the open-ended hogshead. The molasses drains out through the holes in the bottom and runs back into the cellar, "vat," he called it. The men are all barefoot, and when I asked him if they washed their feet before beginning work, he said the molasses did that just as well as water. The hogsheads are left as long as any molasses drains out, when they are headed up and are ready for market. The molasses is scooped up with long-handled scoops and the barrels filled, any waste there may be running back into the vat.
It is said we are here to attract the attention of the Rebs until Grant can get in their rear, and so force them to a fair field fight. A New York paper has been going the rounds until it is worn out. When I got it I made out that General Lee got the worst of it at Gettysburg, and that he himself was wounded. Also that his line of retreat is cut off. Good enough, if true, and I hope it is. But General Lee ought to pattern after some officers I know and keep out of danger, when danger is near. After the danger is past then he can come out and shout as loud as any.
July 17, 1863.
Friday. Nothing new to-day, unless it be a new pair of government pants which I was lucky enough to get, and which I very much needed. A good swim in the river, and the new pants have made me feel like new. The body of a man floating in the river was pulled out here and buried to-day. He had no clothing on and it is not known whether he was a native or a northern soldier. We are a lazy set here. We eat corn and sleep and that leaves very little to write about.
July 18, 1863.
Saturday. The weather continues hot. What would we do if our old friend, the Mississippi, should dry up? We wash in it, swim in it, drink from it, and boil our dinners in it. To-day I borrowed a washtub from a native and washed my clothes. I had soap and I gave them the first good one they ever had. My shirt is more like a necklace than a shirt. I hardly know myself to-night. We have been cutting each other's hair. One of the boys borrowed a pair of shears and I guess they will wear them out. The best thing though was a fine-tooth comb, which has been in constant use to-day. That too was borrowed. I am ashamed to tell it, but when I got the comb I pulled out five lice from my hair the first grab. Strange as it may seem, I got no more, and now that my hair is cut close to my scalp the most careful search does not show any signs of others. I guess they must have been having a picnic in some favorite grove and all got caught at one haul. Body lice we don't care for. We just boil our clothes and that's the end of them. Their feeding time is when we are still for a while, but at the first move they all let go and grab fast to our clothing. But the head lice are more difficult to deal with unless it be the kind that I had, which all attend one church and at the same time.