the
latter, as I remember, fell into our hands and was taken into our
hospital where he received the same treatment as our own men.
Subsequently we learned that the raiders were Texans who boastfully
declared that they asked no quarter and gave none. In consequence of
the barbarous treatment of our men who were captured, some
correspondence passed between General Banks and the rebel commander,
but I am not aware that it amounted to anything.

On the eighteenth a scouting party of our cavalry was captured at
Grand River and others in our nearer vicinity. We had two companies of
the Thirty-first Massachusetts mounted infantry, who were used for
vidette duty. Being more exposed than our own pickets they suffered
occasionally from guerilla raids. One party of them, were surprised,
probably in consequence of a little carelessness, and were taken
prisoners with the exception of one man who was killed. He had been a
prisoner once before and fought to the last, rather than again be
captured. On some of these occasions the attacking parties were
dressed in our own uniform.

All through the country back of us, a constant and merciless
conscription was going on, sweeping in all 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 compan