is fascinating, and offers not only
adventure, but the command of a brigade. Certainly at the last moment
there was not a sacrifice I would not have made rather than wrench
myself and others away from the expedition. We are, of course, thrown
back into the old uncertainty, and if the small-pox subsides (and it is
really diminishing decidedly) we may yet come in at the wrong end of the
Florida affair."

"February 19.

"Not a bit of it! This morning the General has ridden up radiant, has
seen General Gillmore, who has decided not to order us to Florida at
all, nor withdraw any of this garrison. Moreover, he says that all
which is intended in Florida is done,--that there will be no advance to
Tallahassee, and General Seymour will establish a camp of instruction in
Jacksonville. Well, if that is all, it is a lucky escape."

We little dreamed that on that very day the march toward Olustee was
beginning. The battle took place next day, and I add one more extract to
show how the news reached Beaufort.

"February 23, 1864.

"There was the sound of revelry by night at a ball in Beaufort last
night, in a new large building beautifully decorated. All the collected
flags of the garrison hung round and over us, as if the stars and
stripes were devised for an ornament alone. The array of uniforms was
such that a civilian became a distinguished object, much more a lady.
All would have gone according to the proverbial marriage-bell, I
suppose, had there not been a slight palpable shadow over all of us from
hearing vague stories of a lost battle in Florida, and from the thought
that perhaps the very ambulances in which we rode to the ball were ours
only until the wounded or the dead might tenant them.

"General Gillmore only came, I supposed, to put a good face upon the
matter. He went away soon, and General Saxton went; then came a rumor
that the Cosmopolitan had actually arrived with wounded, but still the
dance went on. There was nothing unfeeling about it,--one gets used
to things,--when suddenly, in the midst of the 'Lancers,' there came a
perfect hush, the music ceasing, a few surgeons went hastily to and fro,
as if conscience-stricken (I should think they might have been),--then
there 'waved a mighty shadow in,' as in Uhland's 'Black Knight,' and
as we all stood wondering we were 'ware of General Saxton, who strode
hastily down the hall, his pale face very resolute, and looking almost
sick with anxiety. He had just been o