Got up early this morning and read Bulwer's "Strange Story" until called to breakfast; after breakfast went to the cars and started to Shreveport; the track is laid for sixteen miles to Jonesville; we traveled over this at very good speed, jolting and swinging a good deal; at Jonesville we took a stage and dragged along for five miles very slowly, but after changing horses got on very well to Mrs. Eppe's, where we had the only nice meal I have found at any place on the road; reached Shreveport about 3:30 p. m.; stopped at the Veranda; went to the quartermaster and got transportation to Alexandria; went down to see the gunboat, Missouri, now being built. I do not understand technicalities well enough to describe her; she is about 120 feet long and the most solid, massive piece of work I ever saw, covered with railroad iron. I started out with Lieutenant Ochiltree to find a private boarding house; found one; don't know the name of the proprietress; charges two dollars per day; sent our baggage around; took a seat in front of quartermaster's office to look at the ladies passing, and other interesting sights; saw some really pretty ones and felt better for it; started home to supper and stopped to take a drink, saw a fight between a red-headed member of the Fourth Texas, from Navarro county, and a citizen of Shreveport; Fourth Texas was worsted and was carried off to the guard house; I went on to supper; after supper discovered a Baptist church on opposite side of the street lighted up; went over and found the minister and two men and four women holding prayer meeting; staid until the meeting closed and concluded that the Shreveport church was in a luke-warm condition; after church I stood in the street and heard a hopeful widow sing some very pretty songs; went back to my boarding house.
SOURCE: John Camden West, A Texan in Search of a Fight: Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade, p. 23-4
