Evening.
About six, the
Burnside came down the river with horses, hogs, chickens and prisoners. They
took Col. Bryant, just as he returned to his plantation after running his
negroes into the back country. They report great quantities of cotton and
cattle up the river, so I hope we really are to have fresh beef again.
It is nothing like
as damp and unwholesome here as in South Carolina. The same amount of exposure
there that our men have had here, would have given the hospital twenty or
thirty cases of pleurisy and pneumonia, while today, we have but a single case
of acute inflammation. There is coughing enough to keep back several rebel
regiments. I see no reason, however, why the officers should not get
intermittent fever from this handsome river, by and by. It looks as if
midsummer might load it with miasma and alligators. . . .
I am gradually
confiscating furniture for my spacious chamber in the best house of a beautiful
town, as if it were my final residence. I enjoy the long cedar closet that
opens out of my room. The fragrance is so sweet I cannot understand why moths
object to it. having a perfect bath room, without any water in it and costly gas
fixtures without any gas! The war has greatly deranged the machinery of this
town. Almost everywhere, except in this house, I have found the lead pipes cut
by the rebels and used, I suppose, for bullets. When Colonel Sanderson left
here he placed his house in charge of a Union man, saying that it would
naturally be the headquarters of any Union commander. Hence the more perfect
preservation of the property.
SOURCE: Proceedings
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June,
1910: February 1910. p. 375-6
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