Camp Beaufort,
Charles Co., Md., March 7, 1862.
A “SIGNAL CORPS” of some one hundred men is now attached to this division. The signaling is done by means of flags. Yesterday a balloon went up over here, the observers signaling with one over Heintzelman’s division, miles away on the other side of the river. The rebel batteries have opened up on something in the most furious manner. Every gun appears to be working full blast, and the heavy explosions fairly shake the canvas of the tent. [This was one of the preliminaries of the evacuation, which was completed on the 9th.]
Our new Brigadier General [Henry M. Naglee] has got himself universally hated, right off quick. All sorts of stories are going. Here is one, for what it is worth: He had an altercation with Gen. Sickles and pulled his revolver, with a threat to shoot. But when Sickles coolly pulled out his gun and reminded Naglee that he had shot his man before, the latter subsided. I guess there is no question but that he especially and particularly dislikes the Second New Hampshire and First Massachusetts. It is stated that he tried to get them transferred from his brigade, but Hooker wouldn’t allow it.
XLVI
Camp Beaufort,
Charles Co., Md., March 16, 1862.
GOT your letter, with picture, on Friday morning. I placed the picture on one of my shelves, and when Gunnison came in Damon picked it up and asked him if he had ever seen the picture of his youngest sister. “Gunny” told him no, and when he looked at the picture said, “O, well, you can’t fool me; that’s the girl Mart Haynes travels with when he’s home.” But Damon actually made him believe it was his sister. “Well,” said Norman as he held your two pictures up for comparison, “they look enough alike to be twins. If Mart should see the two together he wouldn’t know which one to hitch onto.”
You have, of course, heard that the rebels evacuated their positions last Sunday. They burned everything they could not take away—camps and houses, their gunboat “George Page” and various smaller craft that had taken refuge with her up Quantico Creek. It was a wild scene as viewed from this side. For miles it was an ocean of smoke and flame. They left eighteen or twenty big guns, with other property that could not be burned.