tton field a mile and a half or two
miles to the west of the camp, where the ground was just covered with
running blackberries. We noised it around the camp and directly a fourth
of the regiment could be seen out there picking blackberries. Dr Cutter
heard about the berries and believing them beneficial to the health of the
boys, recommended the giving of passes liberally, and extra large rations
of sugar were also served to eat with them and for a while we had all the
berries to eat we wanted.

April 17, we went on board the old "Northerner" again. We were told we
were going on a special expedition to the rear of Norfolk, Va. We moved
down the river along Pamlico Sound, past Roanoke Island up Albermarle
Sound to near Elizabeth City and landed on the opposite side of the sound
near Camden at just sunrise April 19. We started off into the country. At
eleven o'clock we had marched a distance of eighteen miles through the
dismal swamp, parts of the way over a corduroy road in a terrific heat. A
number of the boys were sunstruck. E. B. Richardson of our company
received a partial sunstroke. At eleven o'clock we struck the Johnnies at
a place near South Mills. Our errand was the destruction of the stone
locks of the Dismal Swamp Canal at that place. At four o'clock we had
accomplished our purpose, the Johnnies had been driven away and the locks
of the canal destroyed. From four to eight o'clock we rested, had coffee
and supper, then started back and arrived at the boat and went aboard at
sunrise the next morning.

Soon after we started on our return trip it began to rain and it rained in
torrents all the first part of the night. That return march was something
indescribable. The logs of the corduroy road became very slippery when wet
and if I fell flat once I did twenty times that night. That march of
thirty-six miles between sunrise and sunrise, fighting a battle,
destroying a canal, eighteen miles through a swamp in a terrific heat, and
the return eighteen miles in a dark, stormy night, part of the way over a
corduroy road, was a test of our powers of endurance we never exceeded
during the whole four years of our service.

We clambered aboard the boat, threw off our knapsacks and dropped, and I
do not think I moved during the whole day. At night the cook came around
and woke us up and we had a cup of coffee and something to eat. After that
I unrolled my blanket and lay down on it and went to sleep again and slept
straigh