SOLDIER 29 



morning are endeavoring to enjoy ourselves drying off. I 

 am writing on a drumhead to let you know where we are 

 and where we are going. I suppose our present destination 

 is Brashier City, Berwick Bay, but beyond that nothing 

 is known. Rumor says Texas and Red River. We have 

 taken tents and all our baggage and do not expect again 

 to see Baton Rouge or Port Hudson. There is a steamer 

 coming up the Mississippi, so I must hurry to get this off. 

 Did n't I enjoy last night's meal on the boat ! It was worth 

 paying fifty cents for a meal to see a white table-cloth and 

 sit down in a Christian manner. We drank coffee to such 

 an unlimited extent that positively we could see each other 

 visibly swell like the woman at the tea-drinking described 

 in the " Pickwick Papers." Donaldsonville is an exceedingly 

 pretty, very old-fashioned shingle-roofed town. There is 

 a bayou runs through its centre some three hundred yards 

 wide, that runs clear to the gulf, and so deep that a frigate 

 lies in it about a mile from where it sets in from the Missis- 

 sippi. The catalpa and China-ball trees are in full blossom 

 and the pecans are leafing out. There is a Catholic church 

 that looks like a barn outside, but is quite tasty inside, and 

 thither the inhabitants, who are mostly French and Spanish, 

 are flocking. We have enjoyed the unwonted luxury of 

 seeing ladies, white ladies, perambulating the streets in 

 clean white petticoats. Don't laugh, but actually those 

 white petticoats are the most homelike thing I have seen 

 for months. Billy Wilson's Zouaves are in our division, but 

 the whole regiment is under arrest and their arms taken 

 away. They got drunk coming down on the boat, and 

 mutineered. Since we returned to Baton Rouge from our 

 expedition to Port Hudson, we have done nothing except 



