"For three days we have watched the river, and every little steamboat that comes up for coal brings out spy-glasses and conjectures, and 'Dar's de Fourf New Hampshire,'—for when that comes, it is said, we go. Meanwhile we hear stirring news from Florida, and the men are very impatient to be off. It is remarkable how much more thoroughly they look at things as soldiers than last year, and how much less as home-bound men,—the South-Carolinians, I mean, for of course the Floridians would naturally wish to go to Florida.
"But in every way I see the gradual change in them, sometimes with a sigh, as parents watch their children growing up and miss the droll speeches and the confiding ignorance of childhood. Sometimes it comes over me with a pang that they are growing more like white men,—less naive and less grotesque. Still, I think there is enough of it to last, and that their joyous buoyancy, at least, will hold out while life does.
"As for our destination, our greatest fear is of finding ourselves posted at Hilton Head and going no farther. As a dashing Irish officer remarked the other day, 'If we are ordered away anywhere, I hope it will be either to go to Florida or else stay here!'"
"Sublime uncertainties again!
"After being ordered in from picket, under marching orders; after the subsequent ten days of uncertainty; after watching every steamboat that came up the river, to see if the Fourth New Hampshire was on board,—at last the regiment came.
"Then followed another break; there was no transportation to take us. At last a boat was notified.
"Then General Saxton, as anxious to keep us as was the regiment to go, played his last card in small-pox, telegraphing to department head-quarters that we had it dangerously in the regiment. (N. B. All varioloid, light at that, and besides, we always have it.)
"Then the order came to leave behind the sick and those who had been peculiarly exposed, and embark the rest next day.
"Great was the jubilee! The men were up, I verily believe, by three in the morning, and by eight the whole camp was demolished or put in wagons, and we were on our way. The soldiers of the Fourth New Hampshire swarmed in; every board was swept away by them; there had been a time when colored boards (if I may delicately so express myself) were repudiated by white soldiers, but that epoch had long since passed. I gave my new tent-frame, even the latch, to Colonel Bell; ditto Lieutenant-Colonel to Lieutenant-Colonel.
"Down we marched, the men singing 'John Brown' and 'Marching Along' and 'Gwine in de Wilderness'; women in tears and smiles lined the way. We halted opposite the dear General's; we cheered, he speeched, I speeched, we all embraced symbolically, and cheered some more. Then we went to work at the wharf; vast wagon-loads of tents, rations, ordnance, and what-not disappeared in the capacious maw of the Delaware. In the midst of it all came riding down General Saxton with a despatch from Hilton Head:—