July 7. Tuesday. We were relieved about 9 o’clock and returned to camp. The day was very hot and sultry. The Rebs are very anxiously awaiting their parole so they can go home. We had news of a skirmish in our rear; there were about two hundred prisoners brought in. I saw the Reb today who fired the grape and canister at us when we were behind the log on the 22nd. He is a fine fellow and gave our boys credit for making some good shots. He was anxious to know if he had hurt any of us. He said we had actually dismounted some of their pieces with our musketry. It weakened the spokes so that they would not stand the reaction when fired. The pieces are all dented up by Minnie balls. The top of his gun had been knocked off. He is from Tennessee. He gave me the name and rank of each of the generals we had captured at this place. They are: Gen. Pemberton, Tenn.; Maj. Gen. Smith, Va.; Forney, Ala.; Brigadier Generals Hober, La., Lee, Va., Green, Mo. (killed), Reynolds, Ga., Taylor, Ky., More, Ky., Wauld, La., Bowen, Mo., Vann, Tenn., Barton, Ala.
July 8. We had quite a rainstorm last night and today it is cool and pleasant. The Rebs are around trading the company sugar for coffee and preparing to leave. Just after tattoo, orders came around to be ready at 4 o’clock tomorrow morning, armed and equipped.
July 9. We were up and stacked arms early this morning and awaited orders but none came. News came into camp this evening of a fight in Helena. Gen. Price attacked the place with sixteen thousand troops and came very near taking it, but with the assistance of the old wooden gunboats the Rebs saved the day and drove him back, taking over a thousand prisoners. Price left his killed and wounded on the field. The Negro troops are said to have fought like tigers. The news from the East is fair. Meade met the enemy at Gettysburg on the 3rd and they are still fighting. It is reported that he repulsed two of the grand army corps under Longstreet and Hill. Rosencrans has advanced and occupies Tallahoma, Bragg’s stronghold.
July 10. Friday. We had another rain last night, and the water ran into our tent. Doty and I ran the blockades this morning and went over to see our blackberry patch. I stopped at our old camp on the way back and took a wash. We had our berries baked into pies. Capt. Wheeler bought a keg of beer this afternoon for the boys to celebrate the victory. Nearly all of Co. K are drunk. Columbus Patterson started home on his furlough today.
July 11. Saturday. We were aroused from our slumbers at an early hour this morning, (between 3 and 4 o’clock) with orders to be ready to move at 5 o’clock. Breakfast was over and we had our canteens filled and accoutrements on at the required time. The brigade moved up the road to the main entrance and deployed in line. The Rebs were formed in their different camps and marched between our lines, were halted, brought to a front, and ordered to unstring their knapsacks. Our commissioned officers, except one to a company, were set to work examining paroles to see if they were genuine, and the baggage to see that it contained nothing contraband. A number, when they saw this, slipped out from the ranks and threw away packages of powder. Our company picked out of the ravine a dozen packages or more. Our company was on guard along the line. We had a guard to stop Negroes. It was a touching sight to see some of them part from their masters—they loved them sincerely. Very few besides the officers had them. A few women passed out. The officers carried their swords and revolvers slung by their sides. I saw Gen. Pemberton, Maj. Gen. Bowen, Brig.-Gen. Hebay, of the C. S. A. pass out. We passed out some four or five thousand on this road. The weather is hot and sultry. A sick surgeon came out and while they were examining the regiment he became worse. I brought him some fresh water and he asked me to call on him, as he was carried back to a small tent on the hill in plain sight. I did so after we were relieved, and took his Nig to camp with me and sent him back with warm cakes and tea. About 3 o’clock I was on a detail which was sent up the road to relieve a guard who had been out since morning. We had been on post but a few moments when we were relieved, and I returned to my protegee. He had been in all the eastern engagements, from the battle of Winchester to that of Antietam, he having been with Stonewall Jackson. He was perfectly familiar with all the country around Winchester, Bunker Hill, Martinsburg, Williamsport, and Harper’s Ferry. He was an assistant surgeon in Gen. Ewell’s division hospital, and helped amputate Gen. Ewell’s leg above the knee, at the second battle of Bull Run. He complimented our eastern troops quite highly, and also Gen. McClellan. He said he heard Jackson and Lee say that McClellan was the man they feared most. He was speaking of what a cruel thing this war was and remarked that most of his friends and relatives were in the North, his mother was in Warsaw, Ind. There I halted him, as a matter of course, and let him know our Indiana company was raised in that identical place. He made a good many anxious inquiries, but I was not enough acquainted in that city to give him any satisfactory information. He afterwards spoke of Havana, Ill., and said he had practiced medicine in that town. He was greatly surprised when I told him our company was from Havana, Mason County, Ill., and he was acquainted with a good many of the boys as I named them over. I bolted off for the company and sent up Boggs, who was much surprised to hear that his father’s old partner was a prisoner in our hands. Papers of the 7th came in this evening, bringing enthusiastic accounts of a great battle and victory of Gen. Meade’s army over the Rebs under their gallant General at Gettysburg. Gen. Meade’s dispatches proclaim a great victory and the utter rout of the Rebs, with heavy losses of prisoners and colors. A boat came up from Port Hudson this evening, bringing news of the surrender of the place and garrison. Hurrah for Banks!
July 12. Sunday. After dinner, roll call. I mounted a mule which the boys had caught and saddled, and started for town. The place is very quiet. At the wharf you can see transports as far as the eye can reach in either direction. The river is quite low. I came around the Rebel works and in coming back was surprised to see so little artillery commanding the river. Only four guns and one mortar, and a one hundred and twenty-eight pounder, manufactured in Richmond, Va. In the land defenses from the river to the English Whitworth gun there are twenty-six pieces, making in all from Fort Hill around to town fifty-nine guns. Most of the troops have gone to the rear and there is less than an army corps here at the present.
July 13. Monday. Our forces in the rear are gradually closing up and skirmishing near Jackson.
July 14. Tuesday. The paymaster is here, working on the pay rolls and quarterly returns.
July 15. Wednesday. A heavy detail from our regiment was dispatched to work on Fort Hill today. They are gradually changing the looks of that once important fort, from a rude, unshapely mass of dirt to large neat and substantial works. This afternoon our boys, in filling up the hole made by the blast, dug out a number of bodies. They had been crowded into the hole and covered up. Heavy details are at work repairing the old line of Reb works, also in filling up and destroying our old ones. The famous covered way from the White House to Fort Hill is nearly destroyed. It seems too bad to destroy the works that we spent weeks of hard labor and exposure to construct. It seems to us that they should stand as monuments for future generations to look upon, but still we have implicit confidence in the good judgment of Gen. Grant.
July 16. Thursday. I am on duty again today. The duty is very heavy now as all the troops excepting two divisions have gone to the war. I helped unload ammunition today without any relief and was tired out when night came. They are running a large supply of ammunition back to the rear as rapidly as possible.