Last Wednesday was state election day in Maryland, and several wagons rigged out with flags and banners, and loaded with citizens and unarmed soldiers, went up to St. Mary’s. It reminded me of some of my old election rackets in New Hampshire.
The wild geese are beginning to come along. One small flock passed over the camp yesterday. Quite a number of shots were fired at them, and one big fellow came down. The residents here say there will be big rafts of them on the river this winter.
A schooner has just gone ashore near camp, in trying to get around the point. Our guard details are so arranged now that we are on duty only every fourth day. If this continues, we will have an easy time this winter.
CXVIII
Point Lookout, Md., November 14, 1863.
THE FIFTH REGIMENT has just landed and gone into camp. They came down from Washington yesterday afternoon, but did not land until this morning. There are 750, mostly substitutes, and I hear they have not come to help us on guard duty, but to be drilled preparatory to going to the front. We have the cutest little sheet-iron stove that ever was, set up and in running order.
Monday Afternoon.
Our new-comers of the Fifth are the toughest crowd I ever saw credited to New Hampshire. They are loaded with money paid to them as substitutes, and no sooner were they landed than almost every man was loading up with supplies from the sutler’s. They are not going to do any guard duty, so we hear and so it appears. They are kept very close, having a guard about their camp, and cannot get out without a pass. If they had the same freedom the Second has, there would doubtless be a grand hiatus of the bounty fellows.