Dr. Seth Rogers to his daughter Dolly, April 27, 1863

April 27.

Two or three months ago I wrote you of a fearful monomania among our line officers, called "Muster and Pay Rolls." The fighting in Florida cured them of the disease, but recently the old enemy has shown himself in another form. One can scarcely stir without seeing anxious faces and hearing the anxious inquiry in stifled notes; "Has he come? When will he come?" "Oh he will come and he will be loaded with greenbacks, we shall again be fed and clothed." I regret to say that this form of the disease extends to the field and staff, and while I fancy myself beyond the reach of the epidemic, I do sometimes see floating ghosts of greenbacks which promise much in the future. This evening it had been thundering a long time, before I discovered it was not cannonading, so completely have the elements become demoralized by the war.

Dr. Minor found an enormous alligator in a cypress swamp, this morning, and I joined him for a skirmish through the woods to find the old fellow. We penetrated to the centre of a low cypress growth and then found ourselves in the most impressive sanctuary I ever saw. A circular, open space of about 300 feet in diameter, in the centre of which were two stagnant pools of about twenty feet in diameter. There was not a stump nor a knee in this open space, but all around were the tall, solemn cypresses, completely draped in the long, gray moss. The ground was made dry and soft, like wool, by a kind of moss. The great reptile had gone into one of the pools and roiled the water so we could not see him, but with a pole, I succeeded in making him strike with his tail. We had no opportunity to use our Ballards [rifles], and galloped home through the woods with resolves to try again another day. Within a couple of months that swamp will hold enough malarious poison in it to protect the occupants from human intrusion.

After Mr. Bennett and his assistants had finished paying the men today we took a ride over to Barnwell's. The "Barnwell oak" measures 126 feet in the broadest diameter in the spread of its branches, at least such was my pacing. This is not only the largest live oak but the broadest spread of branches I have ever seen. They start from the body very near the ground.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 390-1