Thursday. Tuesday and Wednesday I spent writing letters, that is, all the time I could get. The heat is something awful. It is almost as bad in the shade as right out in the sun. The only comfortable place is in the river. Several have given out and if it continues many more will do so. We have signed the pay rolls for March and April, and hope to get the money to-day or to-morrow. If we do I am going to eat something off the top of a table, if it takes the whole two months' pay. The story is we are to go back to Baton Rouge, but what for, or when, has not yet been told.
July 31, 1863.
Friday. Pay day. As I was at the quartermaster's this morning, drawing rations, I was sent for to fall in for pay. If there is anything good to eat in this town I am going to fill up. Seems to me I never had such a dislike for army fare as has lately come upon me.
August 1, 1863.
Saturday. A year ago to-day I cradled rye for Theron Wilson, and I remember we had chicken pie for dinner with home-made beer to wash it down. To-day I have hard-tack, with coffee for a wash-down. Have I ever described a hard-tack to you? If not I will try, but I am doubtful of being able to make anyone who has not used them understand what they are. In size they are about like a common soda cracker, and in thickness about like two of them. Except for the thickness they look very much alike. But there the resemblance ends. The cracker eats easy, almost melts in the mouth, while the hard-tack is harder and tougher than so much wood. I don't know what the word "tack" means, but the "hard" I have long understood. We soak them in our coffee and in that way get off the outside. It takes a long time to soak one through, but repeated soakings and repeated gnawing finally uses them up. Very often they are mouldy, and most always wormy. We knock them together and jar out the worms, and the mould we cut or scrape off. Sometimes we soak them until soft and then fry them in pork grease, but generally we smash them up in pieces and grind away until either the teeth or the hard-tack gives up. I know now why Dr. Cole examined our teeth so carefully when we passed through the medical mill at Hudson. I tried some of the southern cooking to-day and am better contented with army fare than I have been for some time. Marching orders. Must get the commissary stores ready right away. Good-bye till next time.
August 2, 1863.
Sunday. My twenty-fourth birthday. We left Donaldsonville about nine last night and marched up the river until midnight. We slept in the road until four this morning, when we started and marched at quick time till 9 o'clock, when the men began to fall out with the heat, and we halted for the stragglers to come up. It is a very warm day, even for this country. The doctor is patching up those who gave out, and I see no signs of going any farther to-day.
P. M. We have pitched what few tents we have with us, which means a stay of some length. There is a large plantation here, said to be owned by a man who has remained loyal to Uncle Sam, and from what I can learn we are to protect him from his rebellious neighbor. Big thing that, for the crack regiment of Sherman's division. I have been thinking of my last birthday, and remember that John Loucks and I went fishing on Long Pond, above Sharon.
August 3, 1863.
Monday. We killed an ox this morning, and are full. The hide, horns, head, legs and every other part of that ox that we didn't divide up among the companies was seized upon by the darkies and is as completely gone as if it had never existed. A swarm of flies over the place where the tragedy took place is all there is left to tell of it.