able-bodied men between fifteen and sixty years of age. Of course many refugees and occasional deserters came within our lines.

During the fall of 1864 we received from time to time re-inforcements of several companies of colored engineer troops, who continued the work on the fort which we had begun. Though not comparing with the arduousness of field service, our duties were by no means slight. It must be remembered that we were in a semi-tropical country, where to an unacclimated person the climate was itself almost a deadly foe. The extreme heat produced a lethargy that was depressing in the extreme. In a few days of dry weather, the surface of the ground would be baked like a brick. Then would come most violent storms, converting the soil into a quagmire and covering it with water like a lake. At this time, there was no small danger of falling into the deep ditches with which the fields were intersected, for drainage. In this way I lost one man of my company. Of course it will be understood how productive of disease would be the malaria from the soil and the adjacent swamps. Our men with all their buoyancy of disposition, had not the resolute will of white men, when attacked by sickness, and would succumb with fatal rapidity. As captain of a company, my most arduous duty, when not on special duty or detached service, was as field officer of the day. This necessitated the visiting occasionally during the day and night, our videttes and picket posts which were stationed on the roads into the country, and at intersecting points in the fields; and also crossing in a skiff the Mississippi river, to visit the troops stationed to guard a telegraph station on the other side. This station was in the vicinity of a famous duelling ground,—a path not far from the river bank,—to which in former days the young bloods of the town and vicinity would resort to repair their wounded honor, according to the rules of the code. As we were too short of horses always to furnish a mounted orderly, the officer of the day would at night, have to make his rounds alone. There was a picturesqueness in those rides in the solemn hours of the night, a portion of the way over deserted plantations where the weeds would be as high as one's head on horseback, the path at times fringing the borders of swamps where the moss hung in festoons from the stately cypress trees, past lonely negro cabins, where sometimes I heard the inmates in the midnight hours, singing some plaintive melody in tones the most subdued.

In addition to our routine work, our officers were largely detailed for staff, court-martial and other duties. The frequent attempts at smuggling contraband goods through our lines, also necessitated military commissions for the trial of these as well as various other civil offences,—on which duty some of us were always engaged. As a consequence, we were always short-handed, and tours of duty came as often as was agreeable. The fall months of 1864 were marked by occasional raids in our vicinity, with orders, at times, to sleep on our arms. The capture of a large supply of revolvers, which were surreptitiously landed near us, indicated the necessity of strictly guarding the lines, and at the same time, furnish those of us who needed them, an ample supply of that weapon.

During this period, we organized schools for the instruction of our men. While some of them were comparatively well educated and were very serviceable in various kinds of clerical work, a large proportion of them were destitute of the most rudimentary knowledge. Through the Christian Commission, of which Ex-Mayor J.V.C. Smith, of Boston, was in our department the efficient agent, we were amply supplied with various kinds of books and utensils, embracing primers, arithmetics, slates and pencils, besides a liberal allowance of reading matter. Our men were eager recipients of these and made good use of them. We tried to stimulate their pride in every way possible, and the great majority of them learned to sign their names to our rolls instead of making their mark. I had some pride in having my rolls signed by the men themselves, but I remember one of my men, however, whom I ineffectually ordered to do this. He admitted to me that he could write, but in consequence of some trouble he had in former years, got into by the use of the pen, he had made a vow never to write again, or something to that effect. My impression is that it was some kind of forgery he was engaged in. It is possible he may have been an unfortunate indorser; if so, his determination would not seem so strange.

At the same time, we were trying to make a permanent improvement in the way above indicated, we were troubled by difficulties, which were incident to army life at all times. Liquor, of course, would make trouble for us, and I think I never knew of any stimulant more demoralizing, in its way, than Louisiana rum. This fiery fluid would arouse all the furies in a man when it had him under its control. Gambling was another vice against which we labored with more or less success. Sometimes, after taps, I would make a raid on some of the men who were having a quiet little game. When winter came, we had replaced our worn out tents with shanties built from the materials of confiscated houses. These would be darkened, and in voices hushed to the lowest whisper, the men would indulge in their favorite pastime. On one occasion, I remember that suddenly forcing the door open, I dropped, most unexpectedly to them, on a small party of gamblers. As I scooped in the cards and the stakes, one of them remarked that it was no use to play against the Captain, for he got high, low, jack and the game.

In the preparations that were making against Mobile in the winter of 1864-5, we anticipated an opportunity to change our comparatively inactive life. But General Sherman (T.W.) said he could not spare us from the important post where we were stationed, and it was with regret that we were deprived of a share in that brilliant affair which has been so well described in a former paper. During this winter, the rebel forces in Western Louisiana, under command of General Kirby Smith, were comparatively inactive, though raiding parties gave us occasional trouble. Towards spring they began to move, and attacks on parties of Union cavalry were not infrequent. Unpleasant rumors of the capture of the Third Rhode Island Cavalry reached us, but proved to be unfounded, except that several couriers were taken. Some rebel prisoners were captured by the scouts, who were encamped near us, but our freedom from attack, was probably largely due to the inundated condition of the country. Owing to the neglect of the levees, the river at its high stage in the spring following broke through the embankment above and overflowed a large tract of country west of us. A raid contemplated by the rebels, which would have given us sharp work, and a force which would have been large enough to annihilate us, unless in the meanwhile reinforced, were prevented by the condition of the intervening country, from giving us trouble.

As an illustration of the disastrous effect of this overflow, I am tempted to give a brief description of a trip I made through a portion of the country that suffered in this way. Before the waters had subsided, I was ordered by Brigadier-General R.A. Cameron, commanding the district of La Fourche, in which we were located, to report at his headquarters in Brashear City, for duty on his staff. Taking a steamer to New Orleans and then the train at Algiers, which is opposite New Orleans, I proceeded very comfortably to a place called Terrebonne, where steam travel came to a sudden stop. A hand-car for a mile or two furnished