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Point Lookout, Md.,August 10, 1863.

I WANTsomething to do, and so “I take my pen in hand,” &c. And yet, after all, I have been pretty busy this forenoon. We had to move our tents so as to give the officers more breathing room—delicate souls! Then I went out and did my week’s washing in a skillful and artistic manner. When that was “hung out” I watched the operations of a pile driver. We are to have a sink way out over the river, and the piles for its support are being driven into the sand.

The toads here! Their number is legion, of all sizes and conditions. There is the very best of understandings between them and the boys, for they are our dependable fly-traps. The mendrive them into the tents rather than out. I am fairly in love with some of the bright-eyed little fellows that are tentmates of mine. They sit so demure and still until a fly comes within reach, when there is the flash of a tongue, and one less fly to plague us. Long live the toads, and may they multiply and increase at Point Lookout.

We had another instalment of rebel prisoners yesterday, five hundred coming down from Washington. I could not help noticing the feeling between the men from North Carolina and those from the Gulf States. On their arrival here the prisoners were formed into companies of one hundred men each, and as far as practicable those from the same state were put together. There were not quite enough North Carolinians for a company, so some Mississippians were put in with them, who began at once to berate their new messmates, twitting them of being unpatriotic, and telling the guard that those fellows wanted to get back into the Union.

Dan. and I are going to fix up our tent. First, we will raise it up a few inches, so as to give the air a chance to circulate under the bottom. Then we will build a couple of nice bunks, one on each side, and between the heads of the bunks a table just big enough to eat and write on.

Tuesday Evening, August 11.

I have been on fatigue duty today. This forenoon I was digging a hole on the beach in which to set a pile post, and this afternoon I helped pitch some tents for the adjutant. About half a dozen of our boys came down on the boat yesterday, some of whom had been in the convalescent camps, or in the distributing camps at Alexandria, ever since the regiment left Washington for the front. But George Slade was not among them, and now I am wondering what has become of him and where he can be.

Company I had fried fish both for breakfast and dinner today. They were fine sea bass, brought in last night by a fisherman in his boat. He had an iron bucket full of blazing pitchwood for a light, and his two little bareheaded children were with him—a boy and a girl five or six years old. They were very pretty, fair-haired, and their appetites evidently had not been spoiled by indulgence, for their father cut slices from a huge loaf of bread in his basket, which they put out of the way, clear, as fast as their little jaws could work.

Well, my boy Dan. has made up the bed and gone to bed, and I guess I will follow suit.

Wednesday Evening, August 12.

I made a great discovery today—nothing less than a newspaper in this out-of-the-way place. It is namedHammond Gazette, and is published for the benefit of the sick and wounded in the Hammond General Hospital. It is a little fellow, just the size ofThe Literary Visitorthat George Batchelder and I used to print. This afternoon I went down and hunted up the office, along with old printer Smith of the Twelfth—familiarly known in Manchester as “Snuffy” Smith. We found quite a neat little office, with a real sociable Vermont printer running the establishment.

About the middle of the forenoon we had a wild gale here, coming off the bay, and the river was full of vessels fleeing to shelter under the Point. Desmond and I went out this evening and brought in a couple boards, which we have cut up into length for bunks; but as we have yet to make a raise on some nails, we will use them tonight for a floor, and I guess we will need one, for it looks as if we were going to have a great shower.

Thursday Morning, August 13.

Last night we had a holy terror of a storm. The wind blew almost a hurricane, the water was a continuous deluge, and the thunder and lightning were terrific. Many of the tents went down, but ours stood up nobly. Those boards of ours were a perfect godsend, as a brook of no mean proportions ran through our tent, and we were perched above it, high if not dry. Jess. Dewey’s tent was one of those that blew over, and everything in it got thoroughly soaked. I thought, at one time, ours would have to go. It must have been a sight, Dan. and I each hugging a tent-pole and holding it down for dear life.

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