The new men of the Fifth are making a great deal of trouble by their attempts to desert. Last Tuesday several made the venture, and one party got clean away by taking a boat from the beach at our camp. As a result, Marston has ordered all the boats taken away, and there is the end of our boating and oyster raking. Two Subs managed to get out to a schooner, and struck a bargain with a negro—who was captain, cook and all hands—to set them on shore outside our picket line. As they landed, a squad of mounted men went tearing up the beach and gathered them in, while a gunboat went after the schooner and brought it in as a prize.
Colonel Bailey has had an old shanty moved up here, which I suppose he intends to have fixed up for himself and wife. He has been quartering down on the point, and it is reported that General Marston has ordered him to make his quarters with his regiment.
Rats! Rats!! Rats!!! We are overrun with them. They swarm everywhere, and are big enough to waylay a cat. They run over us as we lie in our bunks, and the other night one dropped plump in my face from the upper bunk. One of the fellows in that bunk got his hand on one and combed it across the tent, where it struck the boards with a loud thump and a terrified squeak.
I hear the Fifth are going to take their turn at guard duty tomorrow. If they do it will make our duty much easier.
CXX
Point Lookout, Md., November 28, 1863.
QUITE a relief it is to us overworked fellows to have the Fifth take their turn at guard duty. We cannot now be called upon oftener than every third day, and probably not as often as that. You need have no uneasiness about small pox here. There is only one case in this regiment, so far as I know. Most of the cases are from the prison camp. The small pox hospital is outside the lines, and the guard are immunes who have had the disease.
Evening.—I have just had a good supper of oysters, and the papers bring us news of a great victory at Chattanooga, so I am feeling pretty well both in body and mind.