Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, February 25, 1863

Dark with heavy raine hard thunder, & sharp lightning.     it commenced about midnight last night & has continued almost incessant since. After 9 Oc last night we had orders to return with the stea Mariner to helena immediately to take on more comisary stores, & by 11 Oe we ware there loaded up & at 9 Oc this A M we started back & tied up again in Moon Lake by 11 A M the boats of the fleete kept fired up & some of them was plying about in the lake all day, & the Iron Clads & 1 transport & one of the Mosketo fleete gun boats passed out of the lake into the cut off At 5 Oc P. M we ware again Ordered to Helena. Our boat is the comisary for the division, we started at once & arived at ¼ before 7 Oc. Afternoon I took a ramble out through the rain & mud & down to the mouth of the cut off.

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 112

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant Benjamin F. Pearson, February 26, 1863

Rain all last night & untill 12 Oe noon 11 Oc we left Helena Arkansas & went down to where our boys cut the levvee & passed through into Moon Lake, & at 10 Oc PM we entered the pass & the afternoon we put in winding our way down the crooked little branch, through the heavy timber. I believe we only saw one small plantation since we entered the pass it is on the right as we came down there is no sine of enterprise about it. I believe the cut off or pass runs to every point of the compass, & as our fleet moved along often several tuching each other at the bow & stearn, but no place since we entered has it been wide enough to pass or get along side & no place wide enough for a boat to swing around, & often the boat is being rubed by the brush & timber on both sides, & braking limbs & trees, & also guards & wheels of the boats but men ware on hand with poles all the time to bare off against trees & swing the boats, the ground on both sides is from 6 inches to 3 feet above the watter, some under.

SOURCE: Edgar R. Harlan, Currator, Annals of Iowa, 3rd Series, Vol. 15, No. 2, October 1925, p. 112