I WANT something to do, and so “I take my pen in hand,” &c. And yet, after all, I have been pretty busy this forenoon. We had to move our tents so as to give the officers more breathing room—delicate souls! Then I went out and did my week’s washing in a skillful and artistic manner. When that was “hung out” I watched the operations of a pile driver. We are to have a sink way out over the river, and the piles for its support are being driven into the sand.
The toads here! Their number is legion, of all sizes and conditions. There is the very best of understandings between them and the boys, for they are our dependable fly-traps. The men drive them into the tents rather than out. I am fairly in love with some of the bright-eyed little fellows that are tentmates of mine. They sit so demure and still until a fly comes within reach, when there is the flash of a tongue, and one less fly to plague us. Long live the toads, and may they multiply and increase at Point Lookout.
We had another instalment of rebel prisoners yesterday, five hundred coming down from Washington. I could not help noticing the feeling between the men from North Carolina and those from the Gulf States. On their arrival here the prisoners were formed into companies of one hundred men each, and as far as practicable those from the same state were put together. There were not quite enough North Carolinians for a company, so some Mississippians were put in with them, who began at once to berate their new messmates, twitting them of being unpatriotic, and telling the guard that those fellows wanted to get back into the Union.
Dan. and I are going to fix up our tent. First, we will raise it up a few inches, so as to give the air a chance to circulate under the bottom. Then we will build a couple of nice bunks, one on each side, and between the heads of the bunks a table just big enough to eat and write on.
Tuesday Evening, August 11.
I have been on fatigue duty today. This forenoon I was digging a hole on the beach in which to set a pile post, and this afternoon I helped pitch some tents for the adjutant. About half a dozen of our boys came down on the boat yesterday, some of whom had been in the convalescent camps, or in the distributing camps at Alexandria, ever since the regiment left Washington for the front. But George Slade was not among them, and now I am wondering what has become of him and where he can be.
Company I had fried fish both for breakfast and dinner today. They were fine sea bass, brought in last night by a fisherman in his boat. He had an iron bucket full of blazing pitchwood for a light, and his two little bareheaded children were with him—a boy and a girl five or six years old. They were very pretty, fair-haired, and their appetites evidently had not been spoiled by indulgence, for their father cut slices from a huge loaf of bread in his basket, which they put out of the way, clear, as fast as their little jaws could work.
Well, my boy Dan. has made up the bed and gone to bed, and I guess I will follow suit.
Wednesday Evening, August 12.